


What He Requires

by Kaleidoscope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Bittersweet, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Canon Related, Consensual Kink, Crossdressing, Difficult Decisions, Draco Angst, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Feels, First Time, Happy Ending, Hermione Granger-centric, Loss of Virginity, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Room of Requirement, Room of Requirement Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 04:35:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3715255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaleidoscope/pseuds/Kaleidoscope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixth year; something's up with Draco Malfoy. He's become a loner, looks like death warmed up, and is barely even being a git anymore. Harry thinks Malfoy's become a Death Eater, but Hermione thinks it has something to do with a Hufflepuff tie, the Room of Requirement, and a pair of French knickers. So, Hermione decides to figure out what's *really* going on with Draco Malfoy...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse any errors; I have no beta, and mistakes do have a habit of slipping past. Feel free to point them out!

* * *

 

۞ **Part One** ۞

**  
**

**Wednesday 6 th November, 1996**

“I still think there’s something going on with him, Hermione. Look at him,” Harry directs in a whisper, glaring past Hermione’s shoulder, and obediently – long-sufferingly – Hermione swivels as unobtrusively as possible to eye Malfoy. He sits at the Slytherin table of course, but Pansy is no longer by his side, and he speaks to no one. He’s nudging at his porridge with his spoon idly, but that cold, pointed face looks pinched and ashen, and wears a far-away, drawn expression. Hermione has to admit, Malfoy doesn’t look well. She pulls her eyes away from him just as he looks over towards the Gryffindor table, and she flushes faintly, wondering if he saw her staring. She leans forward towards Harry, keeping her voice low.

“Maybe there is, Harry, but I still think you’re wrong about him being a Death Eater. He’s too young. I just don’t think Voldemort would –” Neville sits down next to Hermione and she cuts herself off sharply, smiling widely at Neville and bestowing a cheerful ‘good morning’ upon him. Their turns to lighter subjects than whether or not Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, and Hermione is rather glad for that, because Harry has been harping on about Malfoy for ages now. She’s sick of hearing about it, when there’s nothing they can do to prove whether he is or not – and personally, she doesn’t think he is.

Harry is fixated though, and Hermione has to admit he has a point about Malfoy’s general appearance and behaviour lately being quite suspicious. Gone is the loud-mouthed, arrogant bully, and in his place is a withdrawn, haggard looking boy who only lashes out in retaliation. He’s not with Pansy anymore – rumour is the Slytherin witch actually ditched _him_ , which is odd considering how much she’d been fawning over him ever since they had begun at Hogwarts, and probably before then too.

The accuracy of the rumour is somewhat in question though, seeing as Hermione heard from Luna, who heard it from Cho, who was told it by Anthony Goldstein, who said that Viola Dermott, the Slytherin girl he was tutoring, had been told by her year-mate Astoria Greengrass, who had overheard her sister Daphne and Pansy talking about it. The Hogwarts’ grapevine is a convoluted thing, but from the dejected air Malfoy has carried around lately, Hermione won’t be surprised if the rumour turns out to be truth.

Either way, Malfoy’s acting oddly. Harry’s convinced it’s because he’s a Death Eater and is obsessing over that, in between the times he’s not being irresponsible with that mysterious potions book, or trying to do Dumbledore’s tasks. And Ron’s too busy with Quidditch and snogging _Lav-Lav_ to pay any attention to either Harry _or_ Hermione at the moment. Hermione is beginning to feel…adrift, lately. Restless. Irritated.

She nibbles at her marmalade on toast and chats absently with Neville, friendly and light, but inside she’s feeling rather unsettled. Everything seems a little off-kilter, with Harry and Ron both so pre-occupied with their own private projects, and she without anything to do herself, except study, and that’s nothing new – it’s just what she’s always done.

There’s a commotion across the Great Hall – the shatter of a plate on the floor – and Hermione and Neville break off their discussion about the difficulty of growing South American _Dilmliss Rueben_ plants to stare across the Hall at the Slytherin table. Malfoy is saying something angrily in a low voice to Blaise Zabini – a denial of something, Hermione wants to guess, from the gestures he’s making – and then he stalks off with hunched shoulders, leaving his untouched bowl of porridge shattered on the floor. Blaise laughs, but when the other Slytherin students seem to be querying him, he shakes his head regretfully and smiles a smug smile, mimics zipping and locking his lips. It’s only when he sits down, that Hermione notices Pansy Parkinson is at Blaise’s side, and she smiles up at him adoringly.

Hermione curls her lip and turns back to Neville with a smile. “You were saying that it’s rather prone to root-rot?”

* * *

**Tuesday 12 th November, 1996**

Hermione’s late – she can’t believe she’s _late_. She’s agreed to help a fourth year Muggleborn, Keenan Latch, on his Transfiguration extra-credit essay in the library this free period, and she _forgot_. So now she’s hurrying along the corridors at a brisk power-walk, digging through her bag, hoping she has the book she needs because she’s already ten minutes late, and Keenan’s essay is due tomorrow, and she’s busy the rest of the day, and she _promised_. She’s not looking where she’s going, head bent over her bag, hair fluffing out wildly and cheeks flushed, panting as she flies along. It’s hardly surprising that when she rounds a corner at a pace of power-walk that her Aunt Gerry would be proud of, Hermione goes slamming into another body.

They collide hard and a shock goes all up her arm, her bag falls off her shoulder, tangling in the other person’s bag and hooking them together, and _she_ goes tumbling to the floor. A body lands half on Hermione with a thud that nearly cracks her ribs and she _oofs_ as the breath is crushed out of her. Her bum hurts and her elbow stings, and when she opens her eyes to luminous grey ones, her heart nearly stops.

They are pretty eyes. Charcoal rings around the irises, and crackled grey like shattered glass to the pupil, framed by long lashes, that are surprisingly sooty for who the eyes belong to. Hermione jerks in a breath as she realises _who_ exactly they belong to, and recoils as much as is possible with her back on the stone floor and Draco Malfoy on top of her.

His eyes flutter and then focus on her face, and horror shapes his expression for a brief moment – and this close, he barely looks like _Malfoy_ anymore. He is just straightness of nose and point of chin, fullness of lips and gaunt angles of jaw and cheekbone, and those fluttering luminous grey eyes beneath brows that are so, so dark compared to his white-blonde hair. He is not _Malfoy_ this close, so close that Hermione can see his pores, and a scabbed over tiny scratch at his temple, and that he has a faint crease etched between his eyes even when he’s not frowning. He is a composite of _parts_ , a collection of features that don’t seem to belong to anyone at first. And then he sneers and Hermione feels recognition at last, the melding of who she knows him to be and who he appears to be right now, so close.

Only Draco Malfoy can sneer with such utter contempt.

His hand crushes Hermione’s arm and his knee shoves painfully into her thigh as he scrambles up fast, as though burnt. Malfoy treats her like she’s part of the floor to shove off of, and she cries an ‘ _ow!_ ’ and glares at him ferociously from her undignified position sprawled on the floor, panting and sore from where she hit the floor, and where he elbowed and kneed and shoved at her to get up. Unfeeling, horrid, _evil_ git…who’s currently on his hands and knees swearing in what sounds like panic as he shoves items back into his bag. Hermione sits up, eying Malfoy in his panic and rather enjoying the sight of him all flustered and – and actually upset. Scared. That’s fear on his face and in his voice as he mutters to himself angrily, too low for Hermione to make out the words, bar a curse or two.

She frowns and scrambles up onto her knees, beginning to gather her own spilled items, all tumbled together with his things. She’s silent, not saying a single word and waiting for him to turn his anger onto her, but he doesn’t – he seems too lost in the frenetic collection of his belongings. It’s not normal. It’s not _natural_. Malfoy should be taking great pleasure in mocking and taunting and berating Hermione right now – he should be trying to make her feel like the lowest, clumsiest vermin on the entire earth right now. But instead he almost seems on the verge of crying. Actually _crying_. If he was anyone other than Draco Malfoy, Hermione would ask solicitously what was wrong. But he isDraco Malfoy, so she just keeps her lips zipped and sneaks puzzled sideways glances at him as she shoves her things back into her bag.

There is something under her stripy jersey – it’s a Hufflepuff House tie, and Hermione picks it up, wondering how it got amongst her things, when a hand snaps over her wrist. She jerks back but Draco holds her wrist tightly, his eyes filled with an odd, dangerous desperation as he glares at her. “That was in _my_ bag, Granger.”

“Let me go.” Hermione glares back at him, contrarily clutching tighter at the tie, because he can’t just grab her wrist and hurt it, and boss her about. “Let me go!” Her voice fairly cracks the air, and Draco’s lower lip trembles, his eyes go all tight with a strange sort of despair, and then he opens his fingers and releases her wrist.

“Give it back.” He is kneeling right in front of her and she draws the tie stupidly back into her lap, both kneeling in the corridor staring intently at each other, barely half a foot apart, and she’s rather glad no one has passed them yet. Why does he have a Hufflepuff tie? What’s going on? As Harry would say, it’s terribly suspicious, and Hermione doesn’t like how out of place it seems. What is Malfoy up to?

“Give it back, Granger.”

“Why have _you_ got a Hufflepuff tie?” she asks without her mouth consulting her brain on whether it would be all right to speak, and Draco positively _glowers_ at her with suppressed, frustrated rage.

“None of your fucking business, _mudblood_. Now give it back,” he demands, snatching at it. She jerks it back, standing and hooking up her bag, staring Malfoy down furiously as she shakes with anger at the slur he’d spat at her. Malfoy stands too. He has almost reached his adult height and towers over her now, his pale hair dropping over his eyes and his fists clenched at his sides threateningly – but somehow Hermione knows he is impotent, that he won’t do anything to her.

“Whose is it?” she demands, for one mad second thinking that Harry might be right – that Malfoy might be a Death Eater and his job is to kill off Hufflepuffs one by one, or something ridiculous like that. She shakes away the madness, because there is obviously a reasonable explanation, and puts the tie behind her back, her other hand on her hip as she waits for him to answer.

“Give. It. _Back_ , Granger.” He steps forward, leaning over her, a dangerous slither to his voice, and Hermione remembers absently that desperation sometimes makes people do things they otherwise never would. But why does a Hufflepuff tie make Malfoy so desperate?

“No,” she says primly and turns away from him, about to stalk off, because there is no way that Malfoy needs a Hufflepuff tie, and it might belong someone who will want it back. She can check the tie to see if it’s labelled with its owner’s name somewhere, and if it’s not she can get one of the Hufflepuffs to ask their Housemates if anyone’s lost a tie.

Malfoy’s hand closes around her wrist, jerking her to a halt, and Hermione whirls on him, about to snarl at him to ‘ _let me go_ ’ when he says, “Please.”

There’s a grinding resentment to his voice, but nevertheless Draco Malfoy has said _‘please’_ to Hermione, and she blinks up at him in shock as he says it again.

“Please. _Granger_.” Malfoy tries not to looks so white and desperate; she can tell. He fails. He sighs, still holding her wrist, his hand shockingly warm and dry on her skin, with faint rough calluses from gripping a Quidditch broom. Hermione’s world wobbles on its axis. His free hand swipes over his face, and she can see he’s trying to suppress his anger, trying to look casual and irritated. But she can see through it, now. “Just give me the damn tie. Or do I have to hex you to get it back?”

She silently hands the tie back to him, the yellow and black fabric slithering through her hand into his large one, which she now knows is warm and dry and callused, and _that_ is something Hermione really didn’t need to know about Malfoy.

She doesn’t give it back because of his threat; that doesn’t scare her. She gives it back because for a moment she saw him underneath the mask, and he was so very scared and angry.

He doesn’t say thank you – he just stares at her for a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, his grey eyes a little puzzled, and she sees the anger and the fear and the…gratitude. which flickers on his face for a split second. And then he turns on his heel and strides away, shoving the tie in his bag as he walks.

Hermione stares blankly after him for a moment wondering what on earth _that_ was, when she suddenly remembers Keenan, the Muggleborn she’s agreed to help with his Transfiguration essay. “Oh _no!_ ” Her watch says she is now nearly twenty minutes late, and her shoes clatter on the stone floors as she runs for the library with her hair flying out behind her wildly, all thoughts of Malfoy’s odd behaviour forgotten for now.

* * *

  **Saturday, 23 rd November, 1996**

“Well yeah, that is strange, ‘Mione – really bloody strange. But I’m not sure what a Hufflepuff tie has to do with anything _evil_. It’s hardly a Death Eater type thing, is it?” Ron comments from his sprawl on the floor in front of Hermione’s armchair, doodling broomsticks and snitches idly on a scrap bit of parchment with a rather leaky quill, his fingers getting all inky. Hermione is still mad at him about his obsession with _Lav-Lav_ , but she has decided to try very hard to be mature and suppress her intense irritation. Hermione, Harry, and Ron are tucked away in a private corner of the Gryffindor common room at the moment, which is empty – most of their Housemates having gone into Hogsmeade.

Only the first and second years are left, and Ron’s glowering glances at them keeps the younger students from encroaching on their little corner. Hermione has, after much private pondering, decided to talk to Harry and Ron about the incident in the corridor with Malfoy, and she doesn’t want anyone overhearing. The _muffliato_ Harry cast earlier has ensured their privacy, although Hermione gave her bespectacled friend a glare for using it – no matter how useful it is, she doesn’t like him using that book. He is browsing through it absently now as he nibbles on a chocolate frog, listening intently to the conversation. Multitasking – who would have thought Harry was capable, Hermione thinks to herself with a faint smile.

“True, Ron. It’s not, really,” Harry has to admit. “I’m still _sure_ he is a you-know-what, but _that_ – I don’t know what _that’s_ about. Maybe he just nicked it off a Hufflepuff to be a prat, or something.”

Hermione shrugs, snuggling back into the cosy arm chair she’s claimed for herself and frowns thoughtfully, her fingers curled around the Charms textbook on her lap. She should be doing the required readings but Malfoy’s strange behaviour has been on her mind since it happened. She can’t stop puzzling over it.

“Well, no, it’s not Death Eater behaviour, but then _I_ don’t think he’s a Death Eater anyway, Harry. But it’s still odd, don’t you think? I just can’t figure out _why_ he was so insistent about _a Hufflepuff tie_ , of all things. I don’t see why he’d get that upset if it was just a tie he’d nicked from someone. He was so terrified that I’d found it, and so desperate to get it back, that it was like he just completely forgot to be a total bigoted arse.”

“Merlin’s balls, are we going to spend all day talking about the git?” Ron complains, and Hermione glares at him.

“Ronald! _Language._ And no, we’re not – I just thought Harry might like to know Malfoy was acting strangely.”

“Death Eater strangely, Hermione. Not strange…strange,” Harry comments with a fond smile to soften his dismissal of the incident, and Hermione bites back an annoyed retort. _She_ listens to Harry go on and on and _on_ about Malfoy being a servant of Voldemort nearly _constantly._ But he can’t even spend more than five minutes pondering why Malfoy was _so_ attached to a tie that he had forgotten to do what had always seemed to be his main joy in life – be horrible to Muggleborns. It hadn’t been natural, and Hermione has watched him since, as closely as Harry has been watching him.

Unexpectedly, she is noticing all these things about Malfoy that if Harry or Ron were displaying, would have her terribly worried. Of course, it’s Malfoy, so she’s not worried – but she is intrigued, and confused.

Hermione has observed that Malfoy has withdrawn into himself entirely – he is no longer the perfect little Prince of Slytherin House, with all his loyal minions. He has become an outsider, a loner, and although that appears to be by choice, Parkinson and Zabini seem to be mocking him without him even retaliating – he just hunches up and retreats further into himself. This is not natural behaviour for Draco Malfoy, and the other students in Slytherin House appear to be as bewildered by this as Hermione is.

Watching him in the Great Hall at mealtimes, Hermione sees Malfoy is not eating. He’s walking around with bruises of strain and sleeplessness under his eyes, and he’s no longer being the least bit cruel or horrible to anyone but Harry on occasion, and even that seems lacklustre.

Well, Hermione decides, as she opens her Charms textbook to page 102 and begins to read, if Harry and Ron don’t think it’s worth investigating this aspect of Malfoy’s odd behaviour, then _she_ will.

* * *

**Sunday 5 th January, 1997**

Hermione is rather enjoying insulting the Minister for Magic in all the clever ways she can think of, trying to best Harry’s rather inventive insults. It is a passable way to spend the evening, as long as she ignores Ron and Lavender’s behaviour across the common room, which isn’t easy admittedly. But her mind is only half on what she and Harry are saying – she keeps thinking about what Harry had said about Malfoy and Snape. Harry is right – it is suspicious that Malfoy threatened Borgin by invoking Greyback’s name. But Hermione still isn’t convinced that something else entirely isn’t going on. Her mind keeps going back to the stark fear in Malfoy’s eyes when he saw Hermione holding that tie.

 _Why?_ What scared him so much? Hermione has become convinced that the key to Malfoy’s behaviour is not Snape, or Greyback, but that tie. She doesn’t know why she thinks that, but she does. It’s ridiculous and even she can’t explain it – she just has a _feeling_. Merlin, she’s just like Harry with his _feeling_ that Malfoy’s a Death Eater. Well, now that they’re back at school Hermione can investigate Malfoy further, and see if she can figure out what his issue is.

Before Hermione goes up to bed, she tells Harry that maybe he’s right – maybe Malfoy is a Death Eater, and that she’ll help Harry watch him, and look for evidence. It sounds a more reasonable explanation for spying on Malfoy than a Hufflepuff tie and a look of vulnerable fear – and it makes Harry happy to know that she thinks he may be right.

* * *

**Wednesday 29 th January, 1997**

Hermione is exhausted. It has been a long, tiring, horrid day, in which it feels like everything that can go wrong _has_ gone wrong, and she is feeling absolutely miserable. Ron has been an utter cad and inadvertently made her cry twice today, and Malfoy – who looks more and more stressed and haggard as the weeks pass – ran into Hermione on the way to Transfiguration and knocked her down, sending her books everywhere. She wouldn’t have been upset by it because it was only an accident, except Malfoy took the chance to sneer at her and snarl, _‘Clumsy mudblood bitch’_ before stalking off.

It had been so unexpected after Malfoy’s retreat into himself lately that Hermione had actually felt tears spring to her eyes – she is no longer inured to being called a mudblood and pushed around. She has let her guard down lately, and because of that, Malfoy’s comment cut her to the quick.

So Hermione has decided to go up to the prefect’s bathroom to have a nice, long soak and try to forget her misery. She doesn’t use it often, but when she does she always feels better afterwards, it’s so luxurious and relaxing. She treads her weary way up to the fifth floor, and thankfully when she says the password the door swings silently open – the bathroom unoccupied, or the door would have been bolted shut. Hermione steps inside with a quiet sigh and slams the heavy bolt home, and then spins around flattening her back to the door when she hears a wretched gasp all choked with tears.

Oh _Merlin._

Malfoy is sitting on the floor – fully-clothed thank Merlin – leaning against the wall and desperately wiping at his tear-streaked face with the cuffs of his oxford shirt. Trying uselessly to hide his tears from her.

Hermione bites her lip, stunned into stillness. Malfoy is crying. His nose is snotty and red, his eyes are watery and bloodshot, and his breath is hitching wildly as he tries to calm himself. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s never seen him like this before. She’s never even imagined Malfoy could cry like this, could look this miserable and…furious. He glares at her, scrambling to his feet and sniffling angrily, seemingly just as horrified and stunned as she is. He is _crying_ and filled with mortified defensiveness, and Hermione reacts on pure instinct. She doesn’t wonder how he got in, or tell him off for being in the prefects’ bathroom, or laugh at him, because she’s too busy staring at him with round, stunned eyes.

“I – I’m so sorry. I didn’t know – the door was unlocked. Are you – are you all right?” is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, and Malfoy rears back as though she’s slapped him and his lips form that familiar sneer of contempt. It’s not quite so effective though when he’s teary and snot-smeared, and his hands are shaking, and his shoulders heaving as he tries to steady his breathing.

“I bet you think this is really fucking funny, don’t you?” he snarls, crossing the room towards her with jerky-quick movements, a disjointed prowl, and Hermione shakes her head fast. She feels sorry for Malfoy. She actually feels sorry for him. She doesn’t think any of this is funny at all. She wishes desperately she’d never come up here. And he’s very angry. She fumbles in her robe for her wand and can’t find the pocket before Malfoy reaches her. He’s suddenly in front of her lightning-fast, and his hands _slam_ against the door either side of her head, and his face is just inches from hers. She gasps and turns her head away, still scrambling for her wand in the folds of her robe, flattening herself further back against the door.

Malfoy doesn’t seem as impotent now as he had in the corridor that day she’d seen the tie. Now he seems frighteningly dangerous. Hermione looks up at him and glares, her eyes narrowing. She puts her hand to her chest and tries to push him back, and her hand splays over his heart, and he is warm through his shirt and his chest is heaving raggedly, she can feel his heartbeat as she shoves at him and he resists for a moment. Hermione’s breath wrenches in as his heart thuds against her palm, and suddenly her throat is dry and her mind is screaming at her that this is far more weird and embarrassing than find Malfoy crying. He seems to realise the intimacy of their position at the same moment as her, because as Hermione drops her hand, he steps back fast, and they stare at each other for a moment.

“No,” Hermione says it in a voice that shakes a little. “I don’t think it’s funny. I’m not a horrible person who takes delight in other’s suffering…” _like you do_ , she finishes silently, and from his expression Malfoy hears those unspoken words just as clearly as she thought them.

“Oh fuck you, you high-and-mighty, self-righteous fucking _mudblood_ ,” he spits and Hermione feels her blood go cold and her skin crawl horribly as he sneers at her. “You lying _bitch_. You’re going to go running straight back off to Potter and the Weasel and tell them all about how you caught Draco Malfoy…” He stops and hitches in tearful breath and smudges his cuff over his eyes again, his ashen, thin face all pinched with anger and humiliation. “And you’re all going to have a fucking good _laugh._ ”

“No I’m not!” Somehow it seems important that Hermione defend her honour to the Slytherin – she doesn’t want even Malfoy thinking she is a liar, and a horrible person. That isn’t who she is. “I would never tell anyone that I saw you – well. I wouldn’t. That would be wrong.”

“That would be _wrong?_ ” he asks, in disbelief, as though she is an alien and he can’t understand her at all. Hermione supposes in Malfoy’s mind, there would be no comprehension of it being wrong to kick someone when they were down; to him, there was probably no better time. She folds her arms across her chest, gaining a little mental equilibrium, and nods. “Yes. I know that’s a foreign concept to you, Malfoy, but some of us actually have moral standards. So, I’m not going to tell anyone about… _this_ , but only if –” She breaks off and squeaks as Malfoy’s hand slams into her shoulder and pins her back against the door, his face jammed up close to hers again.

“But only if _what,_ Granger? But only if _what?_ Are you seriously trying to blackmail me? Because I swear to Merlin, I will make you fucking _regret_ _it_.” His voice is snarling and ferocious and his bloodshot eyes are hard, and Hermione is suddenly actually _frightened_ of him as he snaps out those last two words. Her hand slips back down into her inside robe pocket, finding it at last, and closes around the butt of her wand.

“Oh shut up, Malfoy,” she snaps, as though utterly fed up with him instead of just a little bit scared. “Merlin, you’re a git. I was _going to say_ , but only if I don’t catch you in here again, because you’re not supposed to be using the prefects’ bathroom, and I’ll have to report you if I see you doing it again.”

He blinks those grey eyes and straightens, looking down at her in confusion. “Oh.” He wipes his eyes again and steps back, turning his face away, his breath coming normally now, as though he’s finally calming down. “Oh.”

Hermione cocks her head to the side and tries to catch his eye, and says without thinking again, “Are you, um, all right?” Because he was crying and so upset and she’s never seen him like this before, and whether he’s Malfoy the git or not, there’s something about seeing the utter misery of another human being that makes Hermione want to reach out. He stares at her in disbelief, and a snarky, mean retort seems to hover on his lips, before he swallows and shakes his head.

“No. No I’m not, Granger,” Malfoy says simply. There’s a sarcastic little twist to his mouth. “I would think that would be obvious.”

His simple honesty rocks Hermione to the core, and she just gapes at him for a moment, before snapping her mouth shut and then asking what social convention says she is supposed to ask next. “Do you want to talk about it?” she inquires in a small voice, and Malfoy gives her a _look_ that is more exasperated than disgusted.

“No. No I don’t. Now can you _move_ , or are you determined to trap me in here with you while you torture me by asking me about my feelings, and using me to stroke your do-gooder ego?” He arches an eyebrow at her and his expression is superior and scathing despite his still rather teary looking state, and Hermione feels like an idiot. She shuffles out of the way of the door, and stares at him speechlessly as Malfoy stalks up to it, jerks the bolt back and the door open. And then he pauses and facing the corridor, with his head bowed, he says something very low under his breath, and then strides out, slamming the door behind him. Hermione gulps and blinks, and then steps forward to bolt the door again, wandering absently to the enormous bathing pool, feeling as though she is in shock.

She strips and sinks into the water – she may as well enjoy her bath, and frankly, she needs to unwind even more after _that._ Hermione spends the next hour soaking in the steamy hot water and running over and over the confrontation in her mind until it seems to have lost all meaning, or gained meanings that really aren’t there; and Malfoy’s face as he looked up at her that first moment is emblazoned in her mind. What was he crying about? What is making him so miserable that he’s acting the way he is, and crying in the bathroom? _Is_ it the strain of being a Death Eater, maybe? And had she just hallucinated what he’d mumbled when he’d paused on the threshold, or had Draco Malfoy really said _‘thank you’_ to her?

Hermione takes a deep breath and slides beneath the surface of the water, her hair fanning out around her, trying to clear her mind and forget about it all for now.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

۞ **Part Two** ۞

**Thursday 6 th February, 1997**

Hermione hasn’t told anyone about what happened in the prefects’ bathroom; she knows that Harry would want to know about the odd occurrence, but she had promised Malfoy she wouldn’t tell. So she doesn’t. Instead she has been watching him like a hawk in all of their shared classes, and in the Great Hall at mealtimes. Malfoy seems thinner and more stressed with each passing day, and sits at the very end of the Slytherin table, segregating himself from everyone he used to spend time with, and Hermione notices Blaise Zabini keeps quietly taunting him – over what, she doesn’t know. But as far as Hermione can gather from her observations, whenever other Slytherins try to find out what Zabini is taunting Malfoy about, Zabini refuses to tell them.

Harry still insists that Malfoy is a Death Eater, and Hermione doesn’t try to dissuade him from that idea anymore. Nothing untoward has happened since Katie Bell was cursed though, and so Hermione can’t help thinking that Harry is wrong. If Malfoy was a Death Eater, wouldn’t there be more troubling incidents happening? But instead the school is peaceful, in a slow lull, and Hermione itches under the heavy slowness of it. It is like the eye of the storm, and sometimes she feels she is chafing for the wild chaos of the storm itself to arrive – anything but this weighted stillness. She wishes she had more to occupy her, but apart from schoolwork and Malfoy, Hermione’s had very little to distract her from the daily grind.

She’s had very little to do with Ron lately because he keeps snogging Lavender Brown constantly in public, and Hermione is just sick and tired of it. And Harry is busy trying to get Slughorn’s memory, but failing, and is following Malfoy even more obsessively than Hermione. Between the two of them, they must be watching him near constantly, but it curtails them spending time together, unfortunately – and he’s not the best company even when they do hang out. Apart from the two boys, Hermione has very few friends – in fact she really has no _friends_ , just good acquaintances. Hermione sighs as she pulls herself out of her thoughts and notes the time – her free period is nearly up, and she has been so lost in thought that she’s barely accomplished anything.

She shuts her library book and stands, clearing her parchments off the desk and stuffing them into her bag along with her quill and ink well. She has Ancient Runes in ten minutes, and she doesn’t want to be late for class. Hermione slings her bag onto her back and gathers up the books she has been supposed to be referring to, to re-shelve them neatly – Madam Pince _hates_ it when students are lazy with re-shelving. Hermione hurries along the aisles, putting the books back in their proper places. She’s up on the third step of a ladder putting one dusty old tome back, when she overhears Malfoy’s angry voice hissing over the air.

“Leave me the _fuck_ alone, Blaise.”

“Oh, come on Draco. Tell me how much you _love_ –”

“Shut the fuck up! Shit, what do you want from me, Zabini? You’ve got Pansy – and you’re fucking welcome to the bitch, by the –”

“Don’t talk about my girlfriend that way, Malfoy!” Blaise doesn’t sound very upset; he sounds like he’s having fun toying with Malfoy, and Hermione catches her breath so as not to be discovered as their lowered voices draw nearer. Her heart is beating a little faster, and her palms start to sweat with nervousness. She’s not doing anything wrong by listening; if they choose to have private conversations in public places, she can hardly help overhearing, can she?

“Oh shut up, Blaise. The only reason you’re so bloody popular now is…”

“Because you’re not?”

“I swear to Merlin –”

“You’ve lost it, Draco, and you aren’t getting it back. You _and_ your father. You’re just lucky Pansy retains enough affection for you – Salazar knows why – to have made me swear not to tell anyone about what you’re doing.”

Hermione’s eyes widen. What Malfoy’s doing? That doesn’t sound good. That sounds like Harry might even be right. But she doesn’t hear anything more, because Malfoy suddenly hisses a hex, furious and icy, and Blaise Zabini makes a funny choking sound. Malfoy laughs coldly, and then footsteps are thudding towards Hermione. She freezes as Zabini runs toward her with his hand to his mouth, but he doesn’t even notice her. He notices her so little, in fact, that in his stumbling headlong run his shoulder thumps into Hermione’s hip, knocking her backwards. He disappears down the aisle, running for the library’s exit as Hermione’s arms windmill frantically and uselessly.

She cries out in fright as she goes over backwards, trying to save herself by flinging her hands out behind her and taking the brunt of her weight awkwardly on her hands. Three steps up doesn’t seem that high, until you fall from it, Hermione thinks disconnectedly as a yelp breaks from her lips. A shooting pain flares from her left wrist to her elbow, and she’s sure she’s broken it, curling forward and cradling it to her chest protectively, whimpering. Her tailbone hurts right up her spine, and her wrist is so sore – she can’t move her fingers, the pain is too great, and tears are overflowing her eyes; not from any real emotional distress, but from the sudden shock of the fall and the pain.

Footsteps hurry towards her, but instead of Madam Pince’s stern, worried face appearing around the corner, it is Malfoy’s. Hermione blinks at him through her tears; he stands at the end of the aisle with his wand in hand, and he looks all choked with anger, his cracked-glass grey eyes narrowed. The anger retreats when he sees her, his face goes carefully blank, and for a moment they stare at each other silently, caught in what feels like a frozen second of time, neither knowing what to do, or say, or even feel. Hermione expects for him to turn and walk away when the moment breaks, but instead he slides his wand neatly inside his sleeve and strides forward, towards her.

“What happened?” His voice is cold and stiff, and his eyes dart about, looking everywhere but at Hermione’s face. _She_ can’t tear her eyes from him, her brows all scrunched down with confusion at Malfoy’s question. He gives her an impatient look, and she licks dry lips. “Z – Zabini came tearing past and knocked me off the ladder.”

Malfoy eyes Hermione carefully, assessing her, and she realises he knows that she overheard at least some of his conversation with Zabini. He is pale and grim and suspicious, and filled with a bone-deep fear that radiates off him, and once more Hermione feels a little spark of sympathy for the Slytherin. He stares down at her silently and she doesn’t know if he’s contemplating threatening her or begging her, but she doesn’t let it get that far – an impulsive split second decision motivated by pity. And maybe just a little fear, because what she heard could be very _important_ , and if he really was a Death Eater, what lengths would Malfoy go to, to keep his secrets?

“I didn’t hear anything.” Hermione blinks at him, her tear-filled eyes fixed to his, totally sincere, and they both know she heard at least a _little_ – her very denial is proof of that. “Honestly,” she says, smiling through the throb of her wrist. “I was just re-shelving some books I’d been using to research for an essay, and then Blaise Zabini comes charging past like a maniac and knocks me right off the ladder. Do you have any idea what on earth his problem was? Because he seemed rather upset.”

Malfoy stares at her for a frozen moment and then swallows, shifts on his feet, the moment broken, a little nod the only evidence he heard her at all. He moves towards her then and Hermione can’t help a flinch as he bends over her. The little lines of strain around his eyes tighten at her flinch, but he just silently wraps his hand around her upper arm and pulls her to her feet. Shock rolls through her, only derailed by the pain as the movement jolts her arm.

“What’s wrong? He asks, his voice flat and dull, dropping her arm like a hot coal but still standing very close; so close that she can just reach out and sweep her thumb gently over the dark bruised stains beneath his eyes – if she wants to. Her arm is cradling her injured wrist to her chest though, and besides, that would be just utterly mad and entirely undesirable. Malfoy just looks so _tired_ , as though he doesn’t even remember what sleep is.

“I – I think I broke my wrist.” Hermione steadies herself on her feet and lets out a whimper of pain as she puts her weight on her right foot. She looks up at Malfoy ruefully, still reeling from the fact that he helped her up, and entirely uneasy with the lack of space between them that he seems unaware of. “And I may possibly have twisted my ankle, too.”

Malfoy’s eyes are stony and unreadable, but from the way his mouth twitches and curls, Hermione thinks he is warring with something. She stands waiting silently, holding onto a bookcase to steady her. She wants to see what he will do next, and she’s in no hurry to start the long hobble to the infirmary. Several seconds pass, each one seeming to take forever, and then Malfoy makes a harsh, guttural sound of frustration.

“Fuck. All right, Granger. Let’s go.” Malfoy holds out his arm to her stiffly, and she stares at it in bewilderment. “Come on,” he orders impatiently, angrily, frowning at Hermione.

“What…?” Her brow is furrowed and she thinks she must be misunderstanding Malfoy somehow. He looks away from her, staring stonily past her head as he speaks. “Do you want some help to the fucking infirmary or not, Granger?”

“Y-yes. That would be…good. Thank you.” She stares at him confused, lips parted and brain feeling rather fogged as Malfoy gingerly puts his arm around Hermione’s waist. The sensation is a physical shock and Hermione swallows hard and puts her hand on his shoulder, leaning on him, his arm helping hold her up. Malfoy is pressed hard against her, no personal space between them at all, and he is shockingly warm, like a radiator putting out heat. He is wearing cologne that smells like dark woods and spices, and the faintest hint of something pleasant and musky that can only be his natural scent. Hermione’s stomach curls and twists, and a feverish shiver runs over her.

They start to walk, she limping and leaning heavily on him, and his arm tight around her waist, a hot, wiry brand pressing into her through her robe and uniform beneath. They find an awkward sort of rhythm, although both of them stay stiff and uncomfortable, and at the door to the library, Malfoy casts her a dark glance.

“If anyone asks, Madam Pince ordered me to help you.”

Hermione nods, and a smile twitches at her lips. “Of course.”

“And if we come across any of your little friends, they can help you the rest of the way.”

“Of course,” Hermione says again, and now she is smiling faintly and Malfoy is looking at her in annoyed exasperation and confusion, no doubt wondering what she finds so funny. “Thank you, Malfoy,” she says quietly, and he grunts dismissively and scowls, beginning to walk again; his arm holding her up securely, his shoulder thin and hot beneath her tight grip. They meet no one Hermione is friendly with on the way to the infirmary, and garner only a few odd looks. Neither of them says a word, and he leaves her at the door with a sharp nod. She thanks him as he strides away, but he doesn’t acknowledge her.

* * *

**Friday 14 th February, 1997**

It is St Valentine’s Day and Hermione is in the library by herself, having received none of the red roses, sumptuous sweets, or romantic cards that seem to have taken over Hogwarts today. So she has come here, to the musty smell of books and the enveloping silence, to wallow in miserable self pity. Ron is off snogging Lavender, and Harry seemed about as miserable as Hermione and not in the mood for company when she distracted him from his potions book to ask him about doing something together this afternoon. He is probably still absorbed in his stupid, dangerous potions book right now, and Hermione frowns to herself as she moves through the aisles to the small wizarding fiction section of the library.

She plucks a book from the shelf that she has wanted to read for a while – a romantic adventure tale about a young disadvantaged witch and her struggle to make something of herself, and her difficult romance with a young wizard from a well-off family – and heads for the little nook further back in this section that has several comfortable armchairs. She freezes when she reaches the nook and sees a white blonde head, and long legs stretched out; Malfoy is slouched in one of the three armchairs. Hermione debates whether to turn around and leave quietly, but he looks up and pierces her with pale grey eyes, and his whole body stiffens, his mouth tightens. Somehow, that makes her decision for her.

Hermione smiles very faintly and nods at him, and curls up in one of the two free armchairs, and opens her book. She half expects him to go, and she can feel his eyes on her, although she doesn’t look up. She begins to read:

_‘The sun was barely peeking above the tree tops as Eloweyen hurried out of the small house, calling goodbye to her mother, snatching up her cloak, and slamming the door behind her with a bang and a rattle. It was a five mile walk in to the nearest village – being Squibs, neither of Eloweyen’s parents could apparate, and although she was a witch,  at just gone fourteen Eloweyen had not yet learnt how to apparate. She felt her parents’ coin clinking heavy in the little pouch at her belt and repeated to herself the list of things her mother had asked her to get in the village. Green thread, sunshine yellow ribbon, a sickle bag of sugar, feed for the laying hens, a new whetstone for her father, and three balls of lambs’ wool yarn. Eloweyen cut across the meadow their little wooden house was centred in, toward the forest edge, and with her hand clutched tight around her wand, entered the dim realm where the light filtered green through the trees.’_

Malfoy does not leave, and by the time Hermione has finished the page, she no longer feels his gaze on her. She peeks up at the end of the first chapter and sees he is absorbed in his own book, although he seems to feel her eyes on him, because he looks up and for a moment their eyes lock. She looks away first, and her breath is tight and quick in her throat, her pulse racing, and she doesn’t know why. They stay there most of the afternoon, in a strangely companionable silence together that is only broken by the rasp of pages turning, the quiet clearing of throats, or the rustle of clothing as they shift on their chairs. There is an odd serenity to it, and Hermione’s misery is strangely eased by Malfoy’s quiet presence.

Hermione has half-finished the book by the time she gets up to leave, unselfconsciously stretching the kinks and stiffness out of her body before she remembers Malfoy is there. She looks up and he is watching her over his book, and not trying to hide that fact. She licks her lips and searches for something to say before she goes, because the silence is heavy and strange and she doesn’t like it. She needs to say something to break the silence, but it is difficult to think of what to say after they’ve ignored each other this entire time, without so much as a ‘hello’ when she had first come across him in the nook. It would be odd to say goodbye, without having said hello – wouldn’t it? Hermione’s mind goes blank.

Hermione panics quietly, and blinks, clears her throat, shifts her tight grip on her book, and says, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Malfoy.”

Malfoy’s face goes blank with shock, his grey eyes widening and his lips parting, his book sinking to his lap as he _stares_ at her, as though she has just smacked him in the head with her book, or hit him with a c _onfundus._ Hermione could kick herself for being such an idiot, and saying such a _stupid_ thing. She can’t believe it. She doesn’t even know _why_ she said it. Her cheeks flame up and she drags her eyes away from Malfoy’s stunned face, turning and fleeing at a near-run, her steps quick and her blood pounding in her ears as she clutches her book to her chest. She hears him call her name after her, “Granger – _Granger_ ,” in an odd, strangled kind of tone, but she ignores him, mortification flooding over her in waves. She wends a hurried power-walking pace through the aisles, clutching the book to her chest and berating herself.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Malfoy,” she repeats in a horrified mutter to herself, in complete disbelief at her own idiocy. What on _earth_ is wrong with her? What prompted her to say something like _that_ to Draco Malfoy, of all people? Saying it to nearly anyone else would have been fine – just friendliness – but she is _not_ supposed to be friendly with Draco Malfoy. Hermione is so flustered she nearly forgets to check out the book, and Madam Pince has to call her back with a sharp word. The librarian gives Hermione a very funny glance, so she can only imagine she looks as terrible and panicky as she feels. She rushes out of the library feeling as though she is fleeing Death Eaters, only just stopping herself from running.

She is desperate to get away in case Malfoy comes after her, and corners her, and says her name in that bewildered, strangled tone again, which had made her stomach do that funny little twist that made her feel nauseous and frightened and breathless all at once. She doesn’t know why it did that. She doesn’t know _why._ It doesn’t make any sense. Hermione doesn’t relax until she is in the Gryffindor common room, and even then she is still sweaty and flustered for the next few hours, her heart beating like a bird’s wings in the cage of her chest. She doesn’t know what is happening, but she has a very strong feeling that _something_ is happening, and she’s very frightened as to what it might mean.

* * *

 

**Tuesday 18 th March, 1997**

Malfoy is using the Room of Requirement – they’re sure of it. Harry tried to get into the Room yesterday, but failed, and now here Hermione is, staring at the blank wall where the Room is, and chewing on her thumb nail nervously. She’s not sure what she’s doing, or why she thinks she might succeed where Harry failed, but at any rate she’s here now, and she may as well try her plan. Hermione thinks that perhaps Malfoy was _inside_ the Room while Harry was trying to get in, and maybe that was why it hadn’t worked. She knows for a fact that he is not in there now – she passed him in the corridor not two minutes ago, and suspects he was coming from the Room.

He’d had a hectic flush to his cheeks and his grey eyes had been bright and feverish as he’d walked past her, and Hermione thinks that she had seen fear on his face too, badly disguised. She had smiled at him involuntarily, like an idiot, and his eyes had widened and he’d ducked his head, and his white blonde hair had fallen over his eyes as he’d shoved his hands in his pockets and hurried past. Not a cruel word has fallen from his lips in weeks, nor has he done anything unkind to Hermione. In fact, several days ago, she had caught Malfoy watching her over breakfast in the Great Hall, a puzzled expression on his thin, pointed features, and when she had smiled at him, for a moment a return smile had flickered on his own lips.

She wonders as she stares at the blank wall, what it is that Malfoy does in there. Whether, as Harry believed, it is a nefarious scheme, or perhaps just a refuge from the world. Hermione isn’t sure what she believes. She isn’t sure what she _wants_ to believe. She steps forward to stand right in front of the patch of wall and checks the corridor is clear – it is. There is no one here but her. She licks her lips and says, “I want to go into the place you become for Draco Malfoy.” Her voice is quiet but steady. “I want to see what Draco Malfoy does. I want you to become what you become for Draco Malfoy.” Her voice cracks a little bit as she tries, “I want to see who Draco Malfoy is, in here.” Hermione doesn’t want it to be a nefarious scheme. She isn’t sure why, but she desperately wants it to not be anything evil.

Just as she thinks that, the doors appear and she gasps and a rush of victory seizes her. Her heart pounds and her breath comes shallow as she nips inside before any other students come along to see her. She looks around in bewilderment to see the Room is _filled_ with junk. Old furniture, what looks like students’ belongings – all sorts of things, all crammed in. She looks around, and her eye is caught by a full-length mirror that, unlike the other mirrors about, is clear of any dust. It stands by an old ornate cabinet that looks very similar to the one in Borgin and Burke’s, if not identical. She examines the cabinet first, and there beneath it, she sees a bit of black cloth sticking out. It is a Hogwarts uniform skirt, and tucked inside that, a pair of lacy silk French knickers, that Hermione picks up on the end of her wand and peers at.

She frowns. They are obviously new and well-cared for, not items that have been in here for any length of time, and they are stuffed beneath the cabinet as if to hide them. What on earth do they have to do with anything though? And then Hermione remembers the witch swathed in her robes that had gone past Hermione not a minute before she had come across Malfoy. She drops the knickers and pokes them and the skirt back beneath the cabinet, red with embarrassment and frowning to herself. It is _possible_ that Malfoy is having secret assignations with the blonde witch Hermione had seen, and beneath her robes the girl had been bottom-half naked. Like some kind of sex game. Hermione’s nose wrinkles up in disgust at that, and she shudders.

The only real problem with that theory is that the witch had only seemed to be a third year. That fact alone might explain why Malfoy is trying to hide the relationship, because _ew_ , it is just wrong and horrible that Malfoy might be seeing a third year, and yet is quite possibly something that he would do – at least in Ron and Harry’s estimation. But Hermione isn’t so sure, especially not with the way he’s been acting lately. He actually doesn’t seem…so bad. But the skirt and French knickers are definitely real, and they must have some explanation – Hermione furrows her brow, curls her lip in distaste, and fishes the clothing back out from under the cabinet, gingerly checking for any name labels or other clues. Nothing. She returns the skirt and peach silk knickers to beneath the cabinet, making sure they are arranged as closely as possible to how she had found them.

She opens the cabinet next, cautiously. It is bare and empty inside, save for the corpse of a dead mouse, the little limp body looking relatively fresh. Hermione eyes it nervously and estimates it has been dead a couple of days at most. The cabinet is empty of cobwebs, and the hinges are freshly oiled, the little mouse looks like a pet shop mouse, rather than a wild one. Hermione casts a few revealing and diagnosing spells on the mouse, which show it died when its internal organs were torn free and…replaced wrongly? That makes no sense. And is rather disgusting. Why would anyone do that to a _mouse?_ Has _Malfoy_ done it? Hermione quietly closes the cabinet and looks around the whole area. But the mirror seems to be just a mirror, and there is nothing else that seems disturbed – everything else is coated in varying layers of dust and cobwebs.

Hermione leaves quickly, her mind swimming. A Hufflepuff tie, a uniform skirt, a dead mouse in a cabinet, knickers, and a blonde – probably third year – witch. These are her clues. Also, she thinks, as she slips out of the Room and heads down the corridor, there are the clues of Draco’s general strange behaviour, including his apparent strain, and his unusual civility to Hermione. What do all these things add up to? Hermione can think of at least one theory – that he is conducting a secret affair with a third year, which _might_ explain the knickers, skirt and tie, and possibly even Malfoy’s general appearance lately…but it doesn’t explain his behaviour towards Hermione, nor the mouse in the cabinet. And Hermione is convinced that cabinet and the mouse within it are involved somehow.

Why else would Draco have gone to Borgin and Burke’s? But how do the mouse and the cabinet connect up with the tie, knickers, skirt, and the possible involvement of the girl? Hermione frowns to herself as she strolls back to the Gryffindor common room, lost in thought. She debates telling Harry, but doesn’t, and instead spends the rest of the day with her book propped on her lap unread, her brow furrowed in thought. She comes no closer to an answer though – her only options to either forget about it, tell Harry and see what he thinks, or keep following Malfoy, and hope to catch him in the act, whatever that might be.

She goes down to dinner in a daze, and sees Malfoy pale and strained, hunched at the end of the Slytherin table by himself, picking at his food. Her eyes keep drifting over to him, so she isn’t surprised when their gazes meet, but she is surprised by the sickened tension that erupts in her belly, a sensation she can find no name for. It isn’t exactly unpleasant, but neither is it welcome. It makes her uneasy. His grey eyes are soft on her from across the Hall – soft and puzzled, with no trace hatred, and Hermione knows then that she cannot tell Harry about what she has found, but neither will her curiosity let her leave the matter unexplored. Hermione will have to follow Malfoy, and try to get into the Room while he is inside.

She smiles at Malfoy uneasily, the faintest curve of her mouth, and he blinks at her and his lips flicker before he schools his face to stony stillness and turns his eyes back to his untouched dinner.

* * *

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

 

۞ **Part Three** ۞

**Tuesday 1 st April, 1997**

 

Hermione is severely glad that so far, she has managed to avoid being caught in any of the pranks that have taken over Hogwarts today. She suspects that everyone knows she would _not_ react well to having some ridiculous joke played on her – she is just relieved Fred and George are no longer at Hogwarts, because she knows they wouldn’t be afraid of her wrath. As it is, dinner has just concluded, and she is still blissfully hex, jinx, or good old-fashioned Muggle prank free. She checks the Marauder’s Map again once she gets out of the Great Hall, and sees that Malfoy has now disappeared off it. He must be in the Room then – good.

As she heads briskly toward the seventh floor, a feminine voice calls her name and she sighs and stops in her tracks. Luna is hurrying up the stairs towards Hermione, a wide smile on her face, and her long blonde hair replaced with long-stemmed tiny lilies. “Hello, Hermione. Lovely evening isn’t it?” the younger witch greets Hermione, her tone cheerfully dreamy as always. Hermione swears to herself and then smiles back at Luna – she wants to get to the Room before Malfoy leaves. Today might be the day she finally manages to catch him in the act, whatever it is he’s doing.

“I suppose so. But Luna, who on earth did that to your _hair?_ ”

“Oh, I did,” Luna said happily as the two girls started walking again, heading up the stairs side-by-side. “I thought that if people thought I’d already had a joke played on me, they’d leave me alone.” It’s actually quite a clever idea, and reminds Hermione why the odd girl is in Ravenclaw. Luna brushes a hand through the thin green stems sprouting from her head, admiring the tiny lilies that dangle at the ends. “It’s quite pretty, don’t you think?”

Hermione laughs softly to herself; she thinks it looks exceedingly strange, but doesn’t say so, just comments neutrally - “It’s a very good idea, Luna,” - because it is. Better to have something odd happen to you that you chose, rather than be like Dean who has gone to the infirmary because his eyes refuse to un-cross, or Ron who spent an hour this morning trapped in the boys’ bathroom when someone glued him to the toilet, or Ginny who is walking around with purple hair and beard – the youngest Weasley told Hermione she rather likes the hair, but the beard is _not_ on.

Luna peels off from Hermione with a wave, and older witch continues up the stairs taking them two at a time, heading for the seventh floor. She has borrowed the Map with Harry and Ron’s knowledge, telling them she wants to keep trying to find out what Malfoy is doing – which gets their full blessing, of course – and when he disappeared out of the Great Hall immediately after dinner, she checked it and saw him heading towards the seventh floor, not the dungeons. And now, he is apparently in the Room, doing whatever it is that involves a cabinet, dead mouse, a tie, knickers and a skirt. She chews on her lip, nervous. She has also borrowed the invisibility cloak from Harry, and hopes she can _quietly_ gain access to the Room and spy on Malfoy from beneath the cloak, with him being none the wiser.

It takes her ten minutes to persuade the Room to open a small door for her to creep through under the cloak, and when she gets inside she sees past heaped piles of furniture and other oddments that Malfoy hasn’t noticed the small door opening and closing silently. She watches him through a gap in the furniture, able to see his blonde head and shoulders. He is looking pale and worried, muttering under his breath. She moves enough that she can see him open the cabinet and remove a…dead bird? Hermione’s heart throbs in her chest and her breath comes shallow and fast. She moves a little closer, and through a heap of precariously stacked chairs, can see his hand closed around a live bird, which he thrusts into the cabinet and shuts the door on, still muttering beneath his breath, sounding terrified and desperate.

He waits silently, and then after a few moments, opens the door again, and moans in despair, pulling out the same bird he’d put in there, which now appears dead, as far as Hermione can tell from her vantage point. He swears and kicks the cabinet and then sinks out of view, his face contorting. Hermione holds her breath as the sounds of wretched sobs fill the Room; Malfoy is crying as though his heart is going to break, and her own heart cannot help but wrench for him. Hermione doesn’t like to see anyone suffer, not even Malfoy. Especially not with the way he has been acting lately; so civil, and unlike his usual self. She crouches down beneath the cloak and tries to block out the sound of his pitiful sobs, and focus on what on earth he might be trying to do with the cabinet.

Hermione loses herself in thought as she racks her brain for ideas, and her legs are stiff and sore from crouching when a different sound jerks her out of her own head. A whimper. She berates herself for letting her mind wander like that – she shouldn’t be so in attentive. All right, she had the invisibility cloak to keep her from being discovered, but she still shouldn’t let her guard down like that. Another muffled whimper is carried on the musty air, and Hermione’s face goes hot. What…? She hears Malfoy curse aloud, and then his voice mutters: “Stupid Hufflepuff _bitch_. Worthless piece of fucking _scum_.”

Hermione gasps and then claps a hand over her mouth, sneaking around the furniture quietly as possible. Does he have a girl in here? Is it that third year she saw? Is he…is he hurting her? Hermione’s blood runs cold and she realises that she really doesn’t want to believe that of Malfoy. Somehow her loathing of him has…vanished, and she’s not sure why or when it is has happened, but she doesn’t hate him anymore, not even a little. Some of the old feelings rush back in though, as she thinks of Malfoy hurting a poor third year Hufflepuff girl, taking out his bigoted hatred on her. She circles around behind piles of furniture, no longer able to see him from her previous vantage, her blood boiling as she though of Malfoy abusing another student like that. It’s unbelievable, and if true, utterly awful and she will see him expelled for it, the _bastard_.

She moves out into the open nervously, and then she sees him. Malfoy is leaning back against an old ornate bookcase, staring at himself in the mirror. Hermione’s eyes go round and she clamps her hand over her mouth to muffle the horrified gasp that breaks her lips. For a moment she is certain it is some twisted kind of April Fools joke, but it can’t be. Oh Merlin. _Draco Malfoy_ is fallen back against the bookcase _in a girl’s uniform with the Hufflepuff tie on_ , staring at himself in the mirror, his face a mask of pure loathing and his lips muttering insults and moaning pleasure, _with the skirt rucked up and peach silk knickers pushed down, one hand fisted around his p-p-penis._ Hermione nearly chokes on her own saliva, hands over her mouth, silently gibbering in her head, her cheeks so hot she feels like she’s going to spontaneously combust. She tears her eyes away from the sight of him, but then unwillingly, inexorably, her gaze is pulled back.

His head is thrown back against the bookcase; hair dishevelled, cheeks pink with arousal, eyes slitted and glazed, teeth denting into his full bottom lip. His breath comes in little hitches and gasps as he mutters terrible, horrible things to himself, and Hermione is…aroused. She is undeniably, sickeningly, _horrifyingly_ aroused by the sight of Malfoy wanking in girl’s clothes and mocking himself cruelly. She cannot deny it, much as she longs to. The sight sets off an unwelcome throbbing twinge between the flesh between her legs, and her stomach curls and twists, her heart jitters in her chest. The flush in her cheeks, however, is all embarrassment. His penis – oh god, oh _Merlin_ , Hermione is staring at Malfoy’s _penis_ – seems disconcertingly large from here, and his hand pumps up and down it in fierce, small movements, his hips snapping out as he stares into the mirror.

She wants to keep watching. She tells herself it is like a train wreck – so terrible one can’t tear their eyes away, but that is a lie. There is something horribly, perversely attractive about Malfoy in this moment, although the things he’s saying – what he’s wearing makes Hermione want to cringe with sympathetic embarrassment. Oh _Merlin_. Hermione moans quietly to herself in horror. She wishes desperately that she had never come up here. That she had never paid any attention to Malfoy. His face is taut with strain, and he is gasping now, glazed and flushed with arousal, and Hermione is still _watching_. Oh this is so wrong, in so many ways.

But she cannot seem to look away – she is still in shock, stunned senseless by the scene in front of her. Malfoy’s oxford shirt – his own, not a girl’s – is unbuttoned, exposing an expanse of pale, smooth skin, his stomach concave – he looks like a greyhound, he is so thin, his ribs clearly visible beneath his flesh, his nipples a pale pink. Hermione gulps. The yellow and black Hufflepuff tie is knotted loosely around his neck, his feet are bare, his long legs leanly muscled and smattered with pale hair. He is unavoidably an attractive specimen if a trifle thin, and he is not half as ferrety as he used to be. But then her eyes reach Malfoy’s skirt…the knickers, his _penis_ …when Hermione’s gaze casts over those, she loses all ability to think coherently, and begins silently gibbering again. She thinks she may start hyperventilating in a moment.

Malfoy is utterly vulnerable in this moment, all barriers down, and the self-loathing on his thin features is painful to see; it makes Hermione’s heart hurt for him. In this moment, thinking himself completely alone, Malfoy is showing his true face and it is pain, shame, and a hungry, wild sort of greed. Hermione stands transfixed beneath the protective draping shelter of the cloak for a long moment, numbed and mind blanked by the enormity of what she sees. And then she realises belatedly what she is doing; how she is violating Malfoy with this intrusion, and she is horrified and disgusted by herself. _Oh god._ Hermione’s brain snaps back into some semblance of working order, and she turns to flee in a daze.

In her haste to get away, Hermione trips over the curled edge of an old rug, and without thinking she grabs at a hatstand to regain her balance, and only succeeds in bringing it down with her. With an undignified, _loud_ grunt of surprise, Hermione goes crashing to her face on the floor with the hatstand on top of her. She freezes, praying to the gods of fortune and luck that the cloak hadn’t come off her and Malfoy would just assume the hatstand falling was not caused by a person but a natural slippage of furniture. If so, she could just lie here until he eventually leaves. Hermione has very little hopes on that score, though. Malfoy is not an idiot. Merlin, what a _mess._ She hears Malfoy make a horrified, choking sound as she prays to herself, and the sound of clothing moving. He must be changing, she thinks, and wonders what her chances are of getting to the door before Malfoy changes and finds her.

But within seconds – he must have used magic to change so quickly – his footsteps are running towards her. Oh no. Oh no. Oh _no._ He’s going to murder her. He’s going to kill her and stuff _her_ body in that mysterious cabinet. Or something. The hatstand is lifted off her body and flung aside, and Hermione realises she is done for and rolls over quick as lightning, flinging off the cloak, her hand darting for her wand. But Malfoy’s is already drawn, and he jabs it into her throat, staying her movements. And then he realises that it is _her_ , and his features twist and fall with something that looks frighteningly like…betrayal? Horror? Despair? Fear? All of them, and more, as though he is ashamed she found him, as though he is disappointed she would spy on him. As though…

“Granger,” he says in a husky voice that is shaking with rage, and Hermione whimpers, and shuts her eyes against him. But a hand grabs her by the shirt front and hauls her up, popping several buttons off her shirt, and her eyes fly open again, her hands flailing out. Malfoy shoves her up against a desk, and he is in trousers now, the tie gone, but his shirt is unbuttoned still and his feet still bare. His fringe flops forward into his eyes as he glares down at her, hand still fisted around her shirt, and his face is flushed and his eyes narrowed, the vein at his temple is pulsing. He shakes her like a dog shakes a rabbit in its jaws, and she gasps and whimpers again and the breath rattles out of her. He is so _angry -_  but then so would she be, if he’d caught her doing the same sort of thing she’d…

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she says pathetically, and his face shapes itself with sneering disgust. “Of _course_ you didn’t know! That was the fucking _point_ Granger. Shit. _Shit_.” His eyes are flicking about, he is thinking hard, and Hermione doesn’t know what he plans to do, and that scares her – and being scared makes her angry. “Let me go, Malfoy,” she snaps and shoves at him, and he stumbles back half a step and then pushes forward again, using his body weight to press her against the desk. She fights him for a moment, but doesn’t succeed in getting free, only succeeds in twisting against in a way that reveals he is still erect, and a choked inhale rips through her, and for a moment their eyes connect. He licks his lips and his hips press outward slightly, into her lower belly, and his erection juts hard against her and Hermione gasps again. She feels light-headed, and frightened, and there is a pulsing heat between her legs that she is utterly confused and horrified by, but cannot deny.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she says breathlessly, as his cracked-glass grey eyes search over her face and settle on her lips. He clears his throat, and swallows, Adams apple bobbing.

“How much did you see, Granger?”

She finds herself incapable of lying. “The dead bird,” she says, her voice faint and vague. “The dead bird and the live one, and how it died, and you – the – _well_ …”

“And you won’t tell?” he asks scathingly, not believing her for a moment, and she can’t blame him. Hermione blinks, lashes fluttering erratically, heart going like a freight train, his penis still erect and still digging into her, and she squirms with a perverse mix of want and revulsion, shoves at him but he is immovable.

“I – I won’t tell about your…” It is impossible to say. She stares at Malfoy helplessly, and he nods sharply, his mouth and jaw tightening.

“About my repulsive, twisted predilections?”

“I believe Muggles mostly classify it as _kink_ , not repulsive predilections, Malfoy,” Hermione says pertly, and remembers very sharply the loathing in him, the shame that still hovers there no matter how much he tries to hide it, and adds brusquely, “And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, either.”

“Oh, really, Granger? Well, the rest of the wizarding world doesn’t agree with you, and I don’t trust you to keep your big mouth shut when it’s my reputation on the line. And I can’t let you go about telling anyone about the cabinet, anyway.”

She shoves at him ineffectively, and he jabs his wand against the side of her neck, his other hand still fisted in her shirt, his penis _still_ erect. Hermione would wonder about the impressive single-mindedness of teenage boys and their hormones, except she is aroused too,  still, in a confused, frightened, muddled sort of way. A third of her brain is still gibbering at her, another third is frightened and angry, and the last third wants to kiss those full lips just inches from her. Hermione’s hands grip his shoulders and she pictures him again, his head fallen back and his breath hitching and shuddering, and her fingers climb their way up to his hair, threading through the fine white blonde locks tenderly of their own accord, while Malfoy stares at her in frozen shock.

She is utterly mad. She has gone around the bend. She has completely lost it. She needs to be shipped off to St Mungo’s, post-haste.

Malfoy bends his head down, towards Hermione, and she tilts her face up, and when their lips meet a shock runs through both of them, and her hands fist in his hair and he drops his wand with a clatter and clutches her to him almost frantically. His mouth is hot and he parts her lips expertly, tongue slipping into the wet warmth of her mouth, tracing the blunt edges of her teeth and swirling around her tongue, sending toe-curling, shuddering wrenches of arousal through her. She doesn’t know what the _hell_ she is doing, but Malfoy is moaning into her mouth, and one of his hands clutches her bum, and the other is flattened hard between her shoulder blades holding her close, and his lips are drawing the sweetest pleasure out of her.

Malfoy tastes how he smells – like spices and a clean heat, and Hermione is tangled with him, mindless and helpless, pressed against the desk with his erection pressing into her and her fingers knotted in his hair, and it is _good_. It is a good madness that she _welcomes_ , throwing caution and reason and everything but this to the winds, wrapped in Malfoy’s arms, kissing Malfoy’s mouth so wantonly and so eagerly it should embarrass her but it doesn’t. But then, too soon, he drags himself back and sucks in a shocked breath, and she is panting, and so is he, and they stare at each other for a frozen second, a little bit of sanity intruding on the moment, and Hermione remembers what she _should_ be doing.

“Wha–” She licks her lips, chest heaving as she stares up at Malfoy, who looks like a different person, his grey eyes bright and his lips kiss-reddened, desire for her – _her_ , this is _madness_ – written all over his face. His fingers come up and trail down her cheek and along the line of her jaw, a strange, frightened sort of wonder in his eyes. It is too much. She can’t – can’t understand… _anything._ Hermione tries again, trying to be focused because she _needs_ to know, “What is the cabinet for, Malfoy?”

His face goes dark and stony, his eyes thunderclouds and his swollen, so-deliciously-kissable-lips flatten and go hard, he shoves himself back from Hermione and scoops up his wand. She pulls hers automatically, getting her aim on him at the same time as he points his wand tip at her. “Stop!” she cries frantically, everything she knows about who Malfoy is now, running through her head. He is not the Malfoy she thought he was – is he? Hermione doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything, anymore. Nothing at all. She is adrift and her conceptions of who Malfoy is are torn apart, and she doesn’t quite know how it happened. Except she _does._

That first _‘please’_ he had said to her, when they’d run into each other in the corridor. His tears in the prefects’ bathroom and the quiet _‘thank you’_ he had given her. The distant civility he treated her with instead of his usual contempt. How he had helped her to the hospital wing. The afternoon they had passed reading companionably, and the choked way he said her name when she fled. All the faint near-smiles he had given her across the classroom or the Great Hall. The miserable terror and desperation that seemed to be eating him up from the inside out. The self-loathing on his face as he stared in the mirror before while he… That is how it happened. The little moments that made them both people in each others’ eyes, all the little moments.

Hermione gasps for panicked breath. She should hate Malfoy, but she can’t. She _feels_ for him. Not just general human compassion, either, but _desire_ and caring. This is utterly unacceptable, but it is fact and Hermione admits it to herself. But that doesn’t change what Malfoy is doing in here with those creatures and the cabinet, why he cried when the bird came back dead. She knows it is not good; she can _feel_ it is the sort of thing that cannot be good. It can’t. There is no good that comes of locking animals in cabinets and taking them out a few minutes later, dead, with displaced organs. That is Dark magic, and Hermione’s chest _hurts_.

“What is it for, Malfoy? The cabinet. I – I have to know. I _have_ to.” Malfoy lowers his wand.

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll – I’ll –” he begins, ignoring her question. His hands are on Hermione’s shoulders like he wants to shake her, but instead they are petting at her helplessly and trembling, as if he is caught between desires. He doesn’t quite look angry, he looks…torn. Confused. Horrified. His lips tremble and his eyes are fixed on her face, his threat trailing off into impotency. Hermione clutches her hands together in front of her, stifling the mad urge to touch Malfoy and calm him. She swallows dryly, throat feeling thick.

“I – I won’t. I won’t tell. I swear.”

He frowns in swift bewilderment. “Why?” His voice is soft and rough, and Hermione can barely meet his eyes, her heart _pounding_ and her head swimming.

“Because…because…” Because of his misery and his odd almost kindnesses lately, but mostly because of the way it had felt when they’d kissed just now – the fact that they had at all. Her hands snap out and seize his still unbuttoned shirt, and she pushes up onto her toes – mad mad _mad_ – and her lips press firm against his again. There is a frozen moment of indecision where his mouth is horribly unresponsive under hers, and then his fingers clamp down hard on her shoulders and his lips part.

Malfoy does not kiss like Hermione thought he would, although she doesn’t know how she thought he’d kiss. He kisses with a trembling, barely controlled ferocity, his lips moving soft but insistent, his tongue teasing and dipping, his teeth nibbling, and his fingers digging bruises into her flesh. Hermione loses her breath and drags it in through her nose rather than part from him and end this moment, her tongue tangling with Malfoy’s. He is so hot and so slick, and all clutching, half-angry desperation. Twining thrills run down her spine and arousal coils like a snake in her belly, writhing and greedy. She smells him, tastes him, feels him, and it is unlike anything she could have ever expected…and _she likes it._

They only kiss for a mere moments, although it feels endless while they are clung together, but then reality reasserts itself and Draco’s hands jerk back, and his mouth pulls away. For a brief second, Hermione feels utterly bereft – wants to go after his mouth and catch it again, but she shoves the urge down. They stand panting and staring at each other, Hermione’s fingers flexing with the desire to wrap in the smooth, crisp fabric of his shirt again. She wrings her hands together instead, speechless and dizzied.

“You tell, and I’ll –”

“I _won’t_.” Hermione licks her lips and stares at Malfoy, so frightened, so confused. She doesn’t know what just happened, but it was momentous, and she has no idea how to cope with it at all. She narrows her eyes at him, trying to find her equilibrium by reverting to her snappish self. “I _should_ tell; I _should_.” She swallows hard. “But I won’t.” Malfoy’s face tightens, his lips whitening and lines appearing around his shadowed eyes.

“Why did you do that?” he asks, and Hermione knows he means the touches to his shoulders and neck that ended with her fingers curled in his hair, and his lips meeting hers. Her eagerness and the moans that had broken from her mouth into his. And then her initiation of the second kiss, and the fierce desire bubbling up inside her, from _where_ she has no idea. Two kisses. Two of them. Oh _Merlin_ , what has she done? Hermione sucks in a deep breath. She tells him the truth.

“Because I wanted to.” Malfoy’s face flashes over with pain and anger, and he turns and walks away toward his bag without another word. But she can’t let him go, not like this. Hermione stamps her foot like a child, furious and shrill. “Don’t you dare just walk away from me!” she half-shrieks, tears in her eyes, and he freezes. And then he grabs up his bag and turns around, walking back to her, his eyes dark in his white face. He stops a pace away from her, looking coldly down at her, but she can see the trapped desperation lurking in his eyes.

“Why the fuck _not_ , Granger? Why would I stay _here?_ ”

She blinks back tears. “What…what was – _is_ this? I – I can’t – I don’t –”

“You tell me,” he demands sharp and low, and tears cloud Hermione’s eyes, making Malfoy look wavery and indistinct. She doesn’t _know_. There’s nothing she can say. Malfoy nods, his features stony. “Exactly. Exactly,” he says, his eyes dark and icy as he stares down at her. “ _This_ – this is _nothing_. Nothing at fucking all.”

Hermione stands rooted to the ground as he turns and walks for the doors, his bag slung over one shoulder. A shudder tears through her and she wrenches in a jagged breath just as the doors open for him. “Malfoy!” she calls frantically, clutching the edge of the desk behind her with white-knuckled fingers, feeling faint. He ignores her. “Draco!” she yells and his feet halt for a split second, and then he is walking, and he is gone, and Hermione is left a gasping wreck alone in the Room.

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

۞ **Part Four** ۞

**Sunday 6 th April, 1997**

Hermione feels as though she is going to her own execution, or about to leap off the edge of a cliff, the Map crackling in a pocket of her robes as she hurries along. She feels certain she must look dreadfully suspicious, flustered, and breathless with nerves, but luckily the only students she comes across are ones she does not know well. Her heart thuds heavy and hard in her chest as her feet lead her quickly toward the Room. She looks at her watch nervously, and seeing only five minutes have passed since she left the common room, resists the urge to pull out the map and check Malfoy is still there. He must be.

Hermione had been helping Harry and Ron organise study plans with the Map tucked in amongst her notes, her eyes unwillingly flicking to it now and then, to see where Malfoy was. She couldn’t seem to help herself. Twenty minutes ago, Malfoy went up to the seventh floor and disappeared off the Map. Hermione spent the first fifteen minutes agonising over whether she should go to the Room or keep avoiding Malfoy. In the end it had been Harry and Ron who had told her to go – they’d noticed her distraction and asked her why, and stupidly she had told the truth – that Malfoy was in the Room. Harry practically begged her to go off and spy on Malfoy for him – he has a 32 inch Potions essay due tomorrow, and hasn’t even begun it.

Slowing to a halt in front of the blank piece of wall where the Room is, Hermione thinks she is rather glad Harry has pushed her into going. She isn’t going to see Malfoy because she _wants_ to, she tells herself – she is going because Harry told her to. But that is a flimsy pretext, and she knows it; Harry’s request only gave her false justification to do what she wants to. To see Malfoy. Why, Hermione isn’t quite sure yet, exactly. She shuts her eyes and pleads with the Room to let her in, thinking of Malfoy.

They have not spoken since Aprils Fools Day, although they both watch each other with suspicious, confused eyes whenever they are in the same room. Hermione has even found it difficult to concentrate in the classes she shares with Malfoy, her gaze always drawn to that expressive mouth. Hermione knows what he tastes like now. She knows the soft slant of those lips on her lips, the hot, tantalising drag of his tongue, teasing her, and she can’t forget. She has even dreamt of him, twice, of repeat kisses that turned into more – oh, so, so much more. And Hermione has seen the way Malfoy still picks at his food, has seen how the bruises under his eyes are darkening – she has heard a teacher try to speak to him about his dropping marks, and observed the way he has become a pariah in his own House.

It is worrying, on more than one level. In the past several days, Hermione has found herself both worried _for_ Malfoy, and worried _about_ him – what he might be doing with that cabinet. So far, what research she has managed to do has not turned up anything, but Hermione is certain she will find out what the cabinet is eventually. She wishes she could talk to Harry and Ron about Malfoy’s suspicious behaviour with the cabinet, but she can’t. If she does Harry will confront Malfoy, and Hermione knows the Slytherin well enough to know that he will have no qualms about throwing the kiss in Hermione’s face and telling everyone about it. She doesn’t want that; she is so ashamed by it - she can’t have Harry and Ron and everyone else knowing she snogged the Ferret.

And…if she is honest with herself, she is oddly protective of the strange intimacy of the moment she and Malfoy shared. Hermione has dreamt of him twice, and she wakes _not hating him_ , wakes to feel a curious, frightening mix of pity and desire. The kiss…Harry and Ron would make it into something disgusting and sordid and terrible, and it wasn’t, it really _wasn’t_. Hermione desperately wants to talk to Malfoy now, for him to tell her he’s not doing anything that could kill someone. Nothing _too_ terrible. She doesn’t think he will be able to tell her that, but she wants him to, because – and the knowledge shakes Hermione to the core – because she wants to kiss him again, without the burden of fear and guilt hanging over her.

She recoils from that thought, but even as she jerks in a breath and clenches her fists in hot shame and anger at herself, the Room opens to her. As though by thinking about the occupant, like that, before the shame and anger kicked in, Hermione has passed the Room’s scrutiny and is allowed to enter. She pulls herself sharply together and slips inside, her heart pounding and palms sweaty.

“Malfoy?” She holds a hand over her eyes as she calls his name, not wanting to violate his privacy if he is… Although, a dark little part of her is rather tempted by the idea of seeing Malfoy like that again; his head thrown back, cheeks flushed, dragging in hitching breaths and making stifled, low sounds of pleasure... A thrill dances up Hermione’s spine.

She takes another blind step.

“Malfoy, are you –” Her call is cut off as a hot mouth slams against hers, greedy and forceful, and Hermione gasps, her lips parting. Her hand falls from her still-shut eyes and she utters a little moan that is swallowed by Malfoy’s mouth as he kisses her thoroughly, his hands clutching her shoulders hard, holding her to him. His lips move quick and hungry, his tongue dips and plays, sending shocking, quivering want into the centre of her. Hermione has never been kissed like this before Malfoy. A few clumsy snogs with Viktor is the extent of her experience, and the pleasure she got from kissing Viktor pales in comparison to the arousal slamming through her now, nearly frightening in its intensity.

Malfoy is breathing raggedly through his nose, his fingers dig into Hermione’s shoulders painfully, and his mouth – oh his _mouth_ – moves against hers with a skill and ferocity that makes her breathless and trembling. Her hands slide to seize clumps of his hair, and she sways into him, coherent thought swept away in the force of his onslaught. And it _is_ an onslaught. Malfoy is not kissing gently, or tenderly, he is fierce and rough and Merlin help her, Hermione loves it. His tongue curls over hers and send ripples of throbbing lust to the slick flesh between her thighs. His muffled sounds of pleasure and want make her knees weak and her hairs stand on end. The tug of his lips and teeth on her bottom lip, the glide of his tongue over the blunt edges of her teeth, the way he sucks delicately on the very tip of her tongue…it sets a fire raging in her, and Hermione is happy to burn.

And then after long, blurred moments Malfoy shifts his grip from Hermione’s shoulders to her back, and then her bum. She jolts at that – the feel of Malfoy’s long fingers splayed so intimately over her rear is shocking, even with her uniform and robes between his hand and her flesh. She is jerked back to herself and dithers for a moment over whether or not to pull away, but his drugging kisses drag her back under. It is only when he yanks her fully flush against him and she feels his erection pressing into her belly that real fear strikes her. This is Malfoy. This is _Malfoy_ that Hermione is doing this with, and suddenly it is all too much. With a whimper that Draco echoes, Hermione tears her mouth away from his.

She wriggles panting in his arms, staggering a step back when he immediately releases her, and her eyes fly open at last. She sees his face first, as she blinks her vision into focus. His cheeks are flushed, eyes glazed, lips swollen and damp and reddened, his shoulders moving with the heave of his breath, shirt unbuttoned showing a lean, pale chest…and then Malfoy darts forward and clamps his hand over Hermione’s eyes.

“Close your eyes,” he growls as she yelps in anger and indignation, and he swears as she shoves blindly at his chest and tries to stomp on his feet. “Salazar’s fucking sake, Granger! Stop it! Close your bloody Merlin-damned eyes and I’ll let go of you. Just close your eyes,” he half-orders half-pleads, voice low and hoarse from their kisses. Hermione just rears back and grabs at his wrist, trying to wrench his hand away with both hers as she kicks rather ineffectively at his legs.

“Let me go _now!_ ”

“No. Not until you shut your bloody eyes! Shit, Granger, I’m not asking for a lot, here,” he says and Hermione can’t help thinking how _stupid_ he is. She has seen him in a skirt before – there is no point in him going to these lengths to try to hide it now. A bit late, really. And how _dare_ he manhandle her like this, the git.

“Let me _go!_ ” She sinks her short nails into the flesh of his bony wrist hard enough to draw blood and he yelps and lets her go. She stumbles back until she hits something solid and blinks at him, her angry expression melting away as she see him. He looks strange – there is no getting past that. Hermione is unfamiliar with cross-dressing, and she certainly doesn’t have a fetish for it, so Malfoy just looks…odd. He is clutching his wrist, face contorted and red with anger and embarrassment as he swears filthily and viciously at her. She takes a breath, feeling empathy for him, for his vulnerability and the shame he is obviously feeling.

“It –” she begins.

“Don’t, Granger,” he hisses warningly, and she glares at him and finishes anyway.

“It looks a little like a, ah, kilt,” she says weakly, trying to make Malfoy feel less embarrassed, and he scowls.

“Shut up, Granger.” He keeps scowling, and Hermione notes how unattractive that sneer is compared to how he’d looked while he was…wanking. He had looked undeniably sexy, then. He growls to himself, and then snaps at her. “Shut your eyes.” He pauses and then adds a sullen: “Please.”

“Fine, although I don’t see the point, Malfoy. I’ve already seen you, I can’t exactly un-see it,” Hermione argues, but she closes her eyes and waits for long minutes. She can hear the slide of fabric in the dark behind her eyes, and a picture of him changing springs into her mind’s eye, disconcertingly vivid. And…appealing.

“What are you doing here?” Malfoy asks, his voice coming from so close that Hermione squeaks. She opens her eyes to his chest a foot away from her, oxford shirt buttoned now. She raises her gaze to his face and counters boldly.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“Because I hadn’t finished wanking when you barged in,” he answers crudely, and Hermione’s face burns and she gulps and looks away from him. “And when a pretty witch interrupted, seeing as I couldn’t finish myself I thought I may as well snog her and get something out of her rude bloody behaviour.” Hermione’s gaze flies back to his face, shock rocking her.

“You think I’m pretty?” His features turn stony and blank for a moment, and he shrugs.

“Passable. These days, anyway.” She glares and folds her arms over her chest.

“Prat.”

They stare at each other in awkward silence for a moment, Hermione growing more and more uncomfortable under Malfoy’s blank stare. “I haven’t told anyone,” she says, more to break the silence than anything else, because it’s self-evident that she hasn’t told.

“I didn’t expect you would,” he says with arrogant assurance. “You gave your word, and you’re Gryffindor to the noble, self-righteous core – you wouldn’t break a promise.”

“That’s not why I didn’t tell.” She is breathless and her heart is slamming against her ribs, she is chilly and clammy with fear-sweat. He just stares at her, and she frowns. “Don’t you want to know why?”

“I have a feeling you mean to tell me whether I want to know or not, Granger.” Merlin, he infuriates her!

“I didn’t want to get you into trouble. I didn’t _want_ to tell. You seem so…miserable…and there’s obviously something wrong, something going on, and I – I want to –” Hermione snaps furiously.

“What? _Befriend_ me? Give me your pity? Try to _help_ me?” he asks scathingly, and Hermione flinches back from the venom of him.

“No,” she denies haltingly, because isn’t that partly what she’s been thinking? “No. I – I want to – want to…” She doesn’t know how to explain it properly, not even to herself. It is a strange muddle of wanting to find out what Malfoy’s up to, and other less noble thoughts and feelings that she doesn’t want to examine too closely. She shakes herself and changes the subject. “Tell me why you kissed me, _really_.” Malfoy stares at her steadily, unflustered.

“I already told you.”

“And I don’t believe you. If Ginny Weasley had walked in here, you wouldn’t have kissed her.”

“You sure of that, are you?”

“You wouldn’t!” He scrunches up his nose.

“No, I wouldn’t, truthfully. She’s a _Weasley_.”

“And I’m the mudblood that you hate!”

“If you say so,” he says with amused superiority, smirking faintly at Hermione, and _ooh_ , she just wants to grab him and shake him, or slap him.

“Why?” she demands. She desperately wants him to classify whatever it is that has happened between them, twice now. Hermione wants to be able to stick a label on it – preferably, ‘hormonal mistake’ – and file it neatly away to attempt to forget about, and she needs to know why he kissed her like that just now before she can do that. He arches an eyebrow at her, gives her a slow, lazy smile.

“Didn’t you like it?”

“I…” She boggles at him in mute shock. He takes a step closer, his eyes silver in the bluish light of the room, glinting down at her like a predator’s. Her heart races as he speaks.

“You came here – you didn’t tell anyone – because you wanted me to kiss you again,” he tells her in a low, silky tone. “And that’s why I kissed you.” He is so close to her; it feels like he’s sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and Hermione’s mouth is dry. She swallows with difficulty.

“Since when do you do what I want?” she snaps as indignation and denial bubbles up in her.

“So you _do_ want me to?”

“No!” she cries, her thoughts all jumbled by Malfoy’s words, mind whirling in mixed up confusion, and that is when Malfoy dips his head and presses his lips to hers. Just a brief, decorous touch of soft, warm lips and Hermione’s breath shudders out of her and her pulse leaps as he straightens. She doesn’t want him to stop, she realises with a distant sort of horror. There is an arrogant smirk on his lips, but it is wobbly and weak.

“There,” he says huskily. “I did what you _didn’t_ want me to do. Is _that_ more to your liking?” And Hermione blinks dazedly at Malfoy, and on a breathless exhale, utters a very faint:

“Yes…” That is all it takes and he is on her again, his hands sliding around her waist beneath her robes, yanking her to him. “Malfoy…plea-”

“Shut up, Granger,” he says, staring down at her intently, and then before she can formulate the words to speak again, he slants his mouth over hers and Hermione is lost. Kissing Malfoy is like kissing some strange personification of a lightning bolt; every slide of their tongues together, every shift of his hands on her waist and back, every low, hungry, sensual sound he makes – it all sends shocking, electric thrills through her. Kissing Malfoy is adrenaline-filled, dangerous, and carries the near certainty of getting burnt, but it is unavoidable, striking before she can react, and all she can do is ride it out. Merlin, it’s brilliant.

Her hands roam him from the waist up, and he is whip-thin and the heat is pouring off him, his every muscle is coiled with tension. She kisses him back hard, lust making her reckless. She fights him for control of the kiss, but all her efforts do is deepen it, raise their mutual urgency, and then neither of them is in control anymore.

Hermione is slick and throbbing between her legs, clit aching, body greedy, and Malfoy is hard – she can feel it against her belly as he backs her up against something and pins her between it and himself. He catches her bottom lip between his two and sucks, and heat suffuses her. She runs her tongue over his in circling twirls, and he shivers under her hands and his hips jerk out, pushing his cock harder against her. There is no back and forth, no give and take between them. It is all take, take, _take_ , and Hermione embraces that. She feels scandalous beyond all belief, knowing that Harry and Ron would feel utterly betrayed, and not caring a fig right now.

There is something so terrifyingly liberating about being jammed up against something with Malfoy’s hands toying with her breasts through what suddenly feels like too many layers of clothing, his erection grinding into her abdomen with a desperate, needy want. They breathe raggedly through their noses, occasionally breaking apart to suck in fresh, cool air, and then he nibbles and teases at her throat and neck, and she kisses and bites along the sensitive lines of his sharp jaw. She should feel so _bad_ doing something as taboo as snogging Malfoy, but while she knows she may well be racked with guilt later, in the moment she simply cannot bring herself to care.

It is Malfoy who finally brings their snogging session to its inevitable frustrating end, pulling his mouth away from hers with a finality she senses. Instead of jerking back and going stony and nasty like she expects him to, Malfoy just rests his forehead against Hermione’s. He shudders out a breath, his fingers coming up and gently dragging over her lips. Hermione stares into grey eyes just inches from hers, and a frisson hangs in the air between them.

“I – I have to – I have things I need to…” Malfoy says, his reluctance evident in his eyes and the way he speaks. He wants to keep kissing her, and the strangeness of that is only topped by the fact that Hermione wants to keep kissing him too. She feels like she should say something, feels like they should talk about what in Merlin’s pants is going on between them, but she doesn’t. She just nods her forehead slightly against his, her head spinning and the flesh between her thighs throbbing and begging insistently for the pleasure to continue to its natural end.

“All –” Her voice is unnaturally low and husky, and she flushes and clears her throat. “All right. I – I…” She is lost for words as Malfoy’s fingers trace down the side of her face in what can only be described as a gentle caress. The touch lights her up, makes her tingly and warm, and oh _Godric_ , she doesn’t want him to stop. “Thank you,” she says stupidly at last, and he smiles at her in amusement, and something more that she can’t untangle. It is a heartstoppingly sweet expression, and it transforms him completely. Hermione drinks in the sight of him, committing this moment, his uncharacteristic smile, to her memory. “I still won’t tell.”

“I know.”

“Are you – are you going to…? With the cabinet?” Hermione asks incoherently, and Malfoy steps back from her and she feels cold at the loss of his body heat, and his smile. His face becomes drawn and closed off from her.

“Don’t ask me about that, Granger. It’s none of your business.”

“Is it something for Voldemort? Or something bad…that you shouldn’t be doing?” She can’t stop herself from pressing him on the subject, because really this is what she should be focused on, not kissing him, like some cheap Knockturn Alley tart. He flinches minutely and blanches even paler at her words; although he covers the flinch quite well, he cannot hide the way the blood drains from his face.

“What part of, _‘it’s none of your business’_ don’t you understand?” he prevaricates, snarky and nasty, but his reaction has already confirmed what Hermione had been sure of – whatever he’s doing with that cabinet, it’s either very bad, or very bad and for Voldemort. She still hopes Harry is wrong and it’s not for Voldemort and Malfoy is not a Death Eater, but either way, Malfoy’s words are as good as a splash of icy water to the face, and Hermione is shocked out of her lust-drugged daze. She slips her hand into the pocket of her robes and absently fingers the patterns carved into her wand. The good feelings have drained out of the moment, and the Room feels bleak. But what else should Hermione have expected from Malfoy?

She shouldn’t keep his secret for him any longer, whether she promised or not, whether she wants to give him a chance or not. If Dumbledore was at Hogwarts, Hermione would go to him immediately without any qualms, but he isn’t. She refuses to tell Harry and Ron, knowing how violently and dramatically they would react – or rather, over-react.  Hermione even flinches from the idea of informing Professor McGonagall, although she will if she must. But must she, yet? Malfoy sees her hand in her pocket and she can tell he knows she’s clutching her wand. He stands very silent, still and ready, his eyes cold and lips compressed.

“I – I can’t – I should… You’re doing something you shouldn’t with that cabinet, Malfoy, and we both know it. I may be a Gryffindor, but I’m not thick.” She narrows her eyes on him. “I _should_ tell Professor McGonagall.” She sees him gulp, sees the fear flicker on his face; he looks trapped, desperate, and she wonders again _what_ exactly he is doing, and just how dangerous it might be.

“Please don’t. Granger, please.” The words are forced from him unwilling, but they are completely sincere and Hermione is scared by that – what could prompt him to say please to her like that? – but she is swayed by it too. She knows she should march straight out of there to Professor McGonagall’s office and tell her everything – except the cross-dressing – but Merlin help her, she doesn’t want to. Maybe, Hermione thinks, maybe she can coax the truth out of Malfoy herself, and convince him to stop whatever it is he’s doing without involving anyone else. If she just waits a little while before turning to the Headmaster or Professor McGonagall, just gives Malfoy a chance to make the right decision on his own. After all, Malfoy has obviously been working on this whatever-it-is since the start of the year, and from what she saw on April Fools Day, he doesn’t seem even close to achieving his aim. What difference could a couple of weeks make?

Hermione knows full well she’s only giving him this chance because of the misery written all over him and the burning flutters he makes her feel, and she is ashamed of herself. Deeply ashamed. “Tell me it’s not for Voldemort,” she demands, looking for justification, reassurance that her burgeoning decision isn’t totally unwise, and Malfoy gives her a look she can’t decipher before he answers.

“It’s not for Voldemort,” he says clearly, and Hermione watches him as he speaks the words with complete truthfulness, and she believes him. Maybe she shouldn’t, because he is Malfoy and a Slytherin, but she does. Godric help her, she _does_. There is something in his face as he stares unflinchingly into her eyes that makes her want to try to befriend him and help him, like he had accused her of wanting to do. Help _Malfoy_. Merlin, this must be what going mad feels like.

“I’ll keep your secret then. _For now_ ,” she allows, staring him down. She feels like she ought to say something more, but again her brain fails her, and she can think of nothing appropriate to say. The silence stretches out between them, wrapping them up in dim blue light and quiet, and she finds it difficult to drag her eyes from his face as he finally speaks, very quietly.

“Thank you. Hermione.” Her name soft on his lips; the lips that such a short time ago had been kissing her lips and throat and jaw, creating such delicious sensations thrilling through her. It is an alien experience hearing him speak her name like that, and it rattles Hermione to the core. She nods awkwardly, jerkily at him, and then sidles past him with her head ducked to avoid his eyes, striding fast for the doors of the Room. His voice stops her in her tracks as she pulls a door ajar. “I’ll be here tomorrow evening. At seven.”

Her head spins and she feels nearly dizzy as she sucks in air. He has…he has…invited her? It doesn’t make any sense, although remembering the way his erection had ground into her, seeking the pleasure of friction, maybe it did, in a twisted way. Maybe he is just using her like a Knockturn Alley whore, but she can’t believe that. She doesn’t respond, just darts out the door and pulls it shut behind her, and stands panting in the corridor, her eyes wide and frantic.

Tomorrow night, at seven. She means to be there – she doesn’t even make the choice, she just knows she has to be there – dragons could not keep her from it. Hermione has…work to do. She has to find out what he’s doing with that cabinet, and dissuade him from it, because Malfoy or not, son of a Death Eater or not, there is still a chance he could walk a different path than the one his father has undoubtedly laid out from him. He doesn’t have to be on the other side, he doesn’t _have_ to be a bad person, and she can tell from her every interaction with him this year, from everything she has observed, that he is miserable doing what he is doing. So maybe…just maybe…

And then, there is the other part of it. Her hand goes to her kiss-tender lips as she walks quickly along the corridor toward the common room. Yes, there is the other part of it. She feels the guilt of enjoying what they have done lying leaden in her mind, along with the guilt and uncertainty over her decision to keep his secret – for now. But her stomach flutters and her very bones seem to fizz with exhilarated rightness as she traces her lips. Hermione doesn’t know if she’s made the right decision – in fact, she’s actually rather sure she’s made the wrong one, but she’s already made it and she’s not going back on it. Hermione has made her choice. She hopes desperately that she doesn’t regret it.

But she will be there tomorrow, at seven, and she is willing to accept whatever consequences come of that choice.

* * *

  **Wednesday 8 th April, 1997**

“No success at accessing the Room yet?” Harry asks Hermione quietly as they walk down to breakfast side by side, Ron lagging behind them with Lavender hanging off him sickeningly. Hermione can’t bring herself to look at Harry as she shakes her head in the negative.

“No.” Hermione looks down so that her loose hair falls forward around her face to hide the heat in her cheeks. She went to the Room at seven the evening before – as she had planned to do – and she hadn’t left until near on eight-thirty. Over an hour spent in a confused, breathless tangle with Malfoy, what little talk that did pass between them terribly stilted and defensive. It had left her feeling extremely conflicted in herself, and she didn’t like the feeling. But oh, she loved the way it felt when he kissed her.

“No. Not yet. But I want to keep trying,” she says softly, glancing at Harry as her blush fades, and he grins at her affectionately, nudges her in the side with his elbow.

“Well, if anyone can figure out how to get in there and catch Malfoy, the ferrety git, it’ll be you, ‘Mione,” he says encouragingly, green eyes bright and guileless on her, and she cringes inwardly.

“So, did you manage to get that Defence essay finished off last night without me prodding you to get onto it, or did you spend the evening losing to Ron at chess?” she asks him briskly, changing the subject with relief.

“Nah, Ron was tied up with _Lav-Lav_ all evening. Poor bastard near got his face snogged right off. It was horrible.” He makes a face. “So was the Defence essay. I’m sure Snape’s going to tear it to bloody shreds.” As luck has it, Harry sets off into a rant about Professor Snape as they wait for the stairs to swing their grinding way over to them. He requires only sympathetic noises, nods, and the occasional mildly relevant word of advice or agreement to keep going, and it gives Hermione’s mind the chance to berate her. She is fixating on how she just lied to her best friend. She feels terrible; so incredibly guilty that she’s surprised even Harry can’t tell.

Hermione has outright lied to Harry, in order to keep a dangerous secret for Malfoy, and to enable her to keep sneaking off and snogging him. She is essentially betraying Harry, in spirit if not in technical fact, and all because of _Malfoy_ , of all people. And although part of her reasoning is well-meaning; trying to discover what Malfoy is doing – and convincing him to stop – without involving hot-headed Harry or invoking the gravity of informing the authorities, the majority of her reasoning is not so righteous. Harry looks plaintively at Hermione as he trots down the stairs beside her, and she thanks Merlin that she is excellent at multi-tasking.

“Oh Harry…” she sighs sympathetically and wearily in response to his most recent lament. She shoots him a motherly look and shakes her head. “You’ve got to learn to pick your battles.”

“I know, but…” Harry’s off again, and Hermione knows she should be paying closer attention, but instead she is busy self-flagellating. She is a liar – a terrible, irresponsible liar, and a slut besides – lying to her friends and running off to snog the boy who has always been the enemy, and dislikes her to boot. Keeping secrets that she _knows_ should not be kept, even if she is only going to stay quiet another thirteen days. Because then, if she still hasn’t finagled the truth out of Malfoy, she’ll go to Headmaster Dumbledore, or Professor McGonagall. She will. Really.

She and Harry enter the Great Hall together, heading for the Gryffindor table, with Ron dragging Lavender along with him a few paces behind, complaining about the way Lavender hangs off him. They dissolve into argument and Harry pauses and turns to awkwardly watch, but Hermione is scanning the Great Hall, looking for Malfoy. Her eyes land on him at the end of the Slytherin table, and he is looking directly back at her. The faintest hint of a smile curls Malfoy’s lips as their eyes meet, and Hermione’s stomach lurches with butterflies the size of trolls, and her pulse races. _Merlin_. She realises very clearly that she is in over her bloody head.

* * *

  **Tuesday 15 th April, 1997**

Tonight is their fourth clandestine meeting since last Saturday, and Hermione is early – she waits nervously for Malfoy on the ancient settee he found in one of the many stacks of furniture and _scourgified_ for their use. Hermione finds herself wanting more than just a handful of awkward words and around an hour or more of snogging that leaves her feeling conflicted and guilty. She has tried to talk to Malfoy but he is entirely uncooperative and cold. It is only when they kiss that he truly seems to come to life. He watches her in class with dulled eyes, and there is something in his gaze that makes Hermione extremely uneasy. So does her visceral reaction to his gaze.

She shifts on the overstuffed, worn settee and buries her face in her hands, sighing with frustration. Perhaps it is time for Hermione to admit to herself that, unlikely, unexpected, and _wildly_ inappropriate as it might be; she is developing feelings for Malfoy. Feelings that she is rather certain Malfoy returns. She tries to tell herself that it is just hormones and chemistry - after all they barely speak to each other! How could they have developed real feelings? But all she knows is that outside of the Room he looks at her like she is a lifeline - whenever he can do so without others noticing, at least. And inside the Room, he looks at her like she is the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world.

She doesn’t know _what_ to make of it, because Malfoy thinking her a lifeline or desirable is just…inconceivable. She wonders if Malfoy is as conflicted over what he is doing with the mudblood know-it-all Granger as she is with him. Then she hears the door grate, and knows it must be him; who else could it be. Her heart leaps and her breath speeds up as she catches sight of him, but when he nears, her anticipation is replaced by worry. He looks near dead on his feet with weariness. He didn’t look this awful throughout the day; perhaps he’d had a glamour up, or just hadn’t looked as terrible at a distance. Either way, right now, close up, he looks dreadful. There are dark stains of sleeplessness and stress beneath his eyes and his features are drawn and strained, his already pale complexion positively ghostly pallid. He looks about ready to fall down.

“Granger,” he greets her wearily, and sinks to the settee beside her with an air about him that implies there will be none of the usual frantic snogging he initiates.

“Malfoy.” Her hands knot in her lap as she twists to face him, tucking a leg up under her. “You look terrible.” She lets her voice fill with concern and empathy, and he shoots her an uncertain glance.

“I _feel_ terrible,” he answers at last, pushing his fringe off his forehead and groaning, slumping further down on the settee. Hermione bites her lips. They are not following their script of brief, awkward greetings, and urgent, mindless snogging coupled with tentative touches. This is something entirely different, and Hermione isn’t sure how she should handle it.

“I – do you want me to go?” she asks, and his hand darts out and grabs her wrist as she shifts on the settee.

“No.” His eyes are grey shattered glass, sharp and pleading. “No, I don’t.” She doesn’t know what to do, and racks her brain; perhaps, she thinks suddenly with a flash of nervous excitement, this would be a good chance to finally have a proper conversation. But she’ll have to tread very, very carefully with Malfoy.

“Is there anything I can do?” He drops his head back against the high back of the ancient settee and smiles at her tiredly, his grip shifting from encircling her wrist to enfold her hand.

“No, Granger. Not unless…” He doesn’t finish and she curls her fingers around his.

“Unless what?”

“Don’t bother.” He smirks, knowing what she was half-heartedly trying to do. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“It was worth a try,” she acknowledges, and they share a small, knowing smile that leaves Hermione’s insides churning. She watches Malfoy as he shuts his eyes and clasps their hands even tighter together.

“There is one thing you can do, Granger,” he says softly, haltingly, and Hermione waits eagerly for him to come out with whatever he seems to be debating saying. She wants to help him if it is in her power to do so, because no one should look as miserable, despairing and hopeless as Malfoy does. It offends her sense of rightness, especially now that she has learnt Malfoy is no longer as…horrible…as he used to be. He cracks his eyes open to slits and a flush appears high on his cheeks. “You could, ah…” He is red and he is watching her like a hawk as he swallows hard and works to get the words out, a naked kind of need on his face. “You could just sit with me, and…pretend you don’t hate me.”

Hermione thinks that might be the saddest thing she has ever heard. Malfoy just wants her to sit with him, and _pretend_ _she doesn’t hate him_. Her heart pangs for him. He tugs on her hand gently, and his intent is clear; he wants her pressed up beside him, and her heartbeat feels like it stutters with fear and an anticipation she doesn’t deny.

“I don’t hate you,” she says simply and shifts closer to him, all tangled, jangling nerves at the alien nature of the situation. There is an important distinction between snogging and snuggling, and somehow with Malfoy, snuggling seems far more intimate.

“You don’t?” he asks in a low voice, and she feels the tension buzzing through him as she tucks herself against his thin side, his arm slipping around her waist. The feel of his arm around her like that is shocking but pleasant, and the splay of his hand at the side of her stomach sends her mind whirling, her breath catching.

“No, I don’t. I haven’t hated you for a long time. Not since that day, in the prefects’ bathroom,” she admits, feeling the tips of his long fingers stroking over her stomach, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, her head resting against the juncture of his shoulder and chest. So frighteningly intimate.

“I should hate you,” he says after a long, surprisingly comfortable silence. “I’m supposed to.”

“But you don’t?”

“No. In fact, I – I like you altogether too much,” he admits. Hermione is stunned into utter silence. She can’t seem to draw a proper breath, jerking in short, shallow mouthfuls, her chest tight and her forehead furrowed as she tries to process what Malfoy just admitted. She feels like she could almost pass out just from the sheer shock of hearing him say that.  Malfoy – Malfoy _likes_ her. Oh, oh, oh dear _Godric_. She has gotten herself into a mess of catastrophic proportions; because Malfoy’s words might terrify her, but they also make her so happy she could just about float away. She is buoyed by happiness, stuffed by it, and it is both ridiculous and wonderful, and very, very bad.

“But I – but you – but…” She twists her head so she can meet his eyes, and his face is tight with the fear of rejection. “This is a bad idea,” she says quietly.

“Yes, it is.”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I realise that, trust me, Granger.”

“Hermione,” she corrects him, stepping of the edge of the cliff into the abyss, passing the point of no return. One corner of his mouth tips up.

“Hermione,” he echoes.

“Why?” She wants – no, _needs_ to know why, to try to make sense of it, but he just shrugs.

“I’ve asked myself that question a hundred fucking times, trust me, Hermione. And I still haven’t found a proper answer. Not one that satisfies me, at any rate.”

“Try me,” she says, expression fierce.

“All right, then.” He closes his tired eyes, fingers still brushing over her stomach, having found their way under her jersey, only the thin cloth of her shirt between her skin and his fingers. She watches him, enjoying the chance to stare at him without him seeing, taking in the shadows his eyelashes make on his cheeks, the way he purses his lips, the sharpness of him; all angles. “You’ve been civil to me, when you have every reason to be cruel. You’ve been… _kind_ , even, at a point when every bloody person in this whole damned school despises me. I suppose it got under my skin. _You_ got under my skin, Hermione. I started seeing you differently –mush to my dismay. Part of that difference being that I realised I was – am, Salazar save me – attracted to you.” Malfoy’s tone is wry, clinical, and when he finishes he opens one eye to briefly scan Hermione’s face, before shutting it again. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

It is, actually. It is…dry and not at all romantic, really, but it is a reason that Hermione can understand, and she is satisfied with that.

“I – I saw you differently too,” she offers, and he snorts self-deprecatingly.

“Yeah, you did.” She flushes.

“I didn’t mean _that!_ ”

“It…doesn’t repulse you? That I…?” He opens his eyes and they are horribly vulnerable, and Hermione’s heart wrenches with compassion.

“To be honest, I found it a little…confusing, and startling, yes, but not at all repulsive. It’s not uncommon in the Muggle world, you know, and yes it’s often seen as rather…odd, but it’s nothing you should be ashamed of.” She realises she sound exceedingly impassioned, and he is staring at her like he’s never seen her before as he takes in the content of her little rant. And then:

“Oh,” he says in a very small voice, like she has said the last thing he would ever expect anyone to say, and he doesn’t know if he dares believe her or not. All traces of superior, arrogant smarminess have been stripped away from him, leaving a thin, pale face with grey eyes all bruised around and filled with a dreadful hope. He looks nothing like the Malfoy that Hermione once knew.

“There is nothing wrong with it,” she assures him again in a soft, firm murmur, and her hand comes up to rest against his chest as she speaks. She can feel his heart beating against her palm, and their eyes are locked. She bolsters her courage. “Seeing – seeing you like that…on April Fools, when…” She knows she must be scarlet with embarrassment because her face feels as though it is on fire, but she forces herself to continue. “It was the strangest, _sexiest_ thing I’ve ever seen. Truthfully.”

Malfoy licks his lips and swallows as Hermione pushes herself up, bracing her hands on his chest, one leg slung over his, their faces very, very close. “Truthfully,” she repeats, and his hands hover either side of her waist, barely-but-not-quite holding her.

“Pansy found out. Just before the start of sixth year, she caught me… She was fucking horrified. Said – said that I was sick…” he confesses in a whisper so low she has to strain to hear him, even with them so close that she can feel his breath puffing hot on her jaw. Well, that explains a lot of what has been puzzling Hermione; why Pansy broke up with him, why Blaise is taunting him, because he has probably been told by Pansy why she’d broken up with Malfoy, and why he has ostracised himself from the rest of his House, because he probably worries about them finding out. Merlin she feels terrible for him. She stares unwaveringly into Draco’s eyes.

“Well Pansy’s a narrow-minded bitch,” she says matter-of-factly, the swearword rather satisfying on her tongue, and when Draco’s lips quirk into an answering smile, Hermione leans in and kisses him decisively. A soft press of parted lips, and Draco’s hands clamp around her waist, lifting her and settling her properly astraddle him. The kiss is just a whisper of tongues brushing together and over soft lips, and then Hermione draws back, her heart thundering.

“Draco,” she says, because she can no longer think of him as ‘Malfoy’. “Draco, what in Godric’s name are we doing?”

“Something you’ll no doubt regret,” Draco says hoarsely, and perhaps he is right, but Hermione kisses him again anyway. Because she wants to, sod it, and she’s sick of always being responsible.

* * *

 


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry - I've been awol from all my fanfic writing and editing lately - life priorities have pushed it to one side. But I'm gradually edging back to it now.  
> Please accept my apology gift of a very belated chapter :3

۞ **Part Five** ۞

**Tuesday, 29 th April, 1997**

“I’ll see you later, Harry,” Hermione says as he steps through the portrait hole into the common room. He glances back, one foot in the common room, the other in the hall, pushing his glasses up and eyeing her with mild curiosity.

“You’re not coming in?”

“No,” she says, feeling prickly with guilt and breathless, nervous anticipation, not offering any more than that.

“ _Still_ trying to get into the Room?” Harry asks rhetorically, with faint admiration. “God, Hermione, you just don’t give up on anything, do you?”

She hefts her bag up on her shoulder, fingers biting into the strap as she shrugs and smiles a smile that feels blatantly wooden and forced. “That’s me,” she answers with faux brightness, feeling like the worst friend in the world. “Too persistent for my own good.” She doesn’t know how Harry doesn’t see straight through her nervous, strained tone and fake smile, but he doesn’t. Emotional range of a teaspoon, she thinks dryly, and for once is glad of it. Harry shifts from foot to foot instead, looking torn.

“I’d come with you, but I’ve got that Transfiguration –”

“Essay to finish?” Hermione guesses, with a fond, exasperated shake of her head. Harry looks briefly uncomfortable, scrubbing a hand through his rather ruffled dark hair.

“Begin, actually,” he admits, and Hermione rolls her eyes.

“Oh Harry, _really._ ”

“If you want me to come though… I mean, you’ve been trying to access the Room for a while now – Malfoy might be getting suspicious, and who knows what the evil git is capable of.”

“Go do your homework, Harry,” Hermione tells him firmly, and flaps a hand at the common room imperatively. “I’ll be fine. Honestly.”

Harry gives her an uncertain look, but then nods and disappears through the portrait hole, the Fat Lady swinging closed behind him. Hermione lets out a relieved sigh and her shoulders slump as she turns and hurries away towards the Room, the Fat Lady watching her. Hermione doesn’t know how much longer she can keep up this charade; eventually Harry – and Ron – will begin to get suspicious. They’ll start to wonder why she is so obsessed when she meets with no success, or will _insist_ on coming with her, or will check the map while she and Draco are both in the Room, and see that they are both absent from the magical map.

Hermione knows she is courting all kinds of trouble by continuing this _thing_ with Draco, and yet she cannot bring herself to stop. She has lost all control of the situation and it unsettles her deeply; a constant, gnawing combination of guilt and fear that eat away at her. But when she reaches the bare section of wall where the Room’s entrance is she hurries inside without pause, like she has every second night for the past few weeks. Hermione’s guilt cannot hope to compare to the alien intensity of the want and anticipation that Draco triggers in her.

Her eyes widen as she enters a softly lit space that is not the place where things are hidden. It is a small study, lined with bookshelves stuffed to bursting, with torches glowing at intervals along the walls, and a fire roaring with leaping, flickering flames. There is a desk, several armchairs, and end tables, and near the fire and facing it, a settee. Draco sits there, his face turned to her, and he looks exhausted despite the smile that is faintly imprinted in the curve of his mouth. Hermione bites her lip, heart suddenly racing with nervousness, because they have never done this before. They have never created a space that was just for them, only used the dusty, gloomy place filled with junk where the cabinet is.

“You’re late,” Draco says, dressed in an oxford shirt with silver cufflinks that catch the light and black trousers, his Slytherin tie knotted loosely around his neck.

“I bumped into Harry on the way up here and walked him to the Fat Lady,” she answers, feeling a little light-headed as she walks toward him, shoes sinking into the thick maroon carpet. Maroon carpet, books, a roaring fire, maroon and gold paisley wallpaper, and Hermione realises that Draco has made this place for her. It is not done to his tastes; stark and minimal, rather it is cosy and comfortable. There is not a trace of the white that he told her last week was his favourite colour.

 _‘White isn’t a colour,’_ she had told him pedantically, and he had laughed at her and told her in a condescending tone that his favourite colour then, was _‘the pink your cheeks turn when you’re mad, or embarrassed, or when I kiss you until you’re moaning.’_ She had blushed then from embarrassment and arousal both, and then they had stopped talking and Draco had made her flush all over with the prickly heat of arousal and shyness.

Hermione can feel herself go hot now just remembering as she sinks onto the settee beside Draco, nervous fingers fumbling as she undoes her shoelaces and tugs her shoes and socks off.

“Fucking Potter.” Draco spits it in a mutter as he shifts closer to Hermione, reaching out and tucking a swathe of wild hair behind her ear. It springs back out again immediately and he makes an amused sound and finger-combs idly though the wayward locks, but Hermione is focused on how he had said Harry’s name. He sounds dreadful when he speaks like that; all bile and hatred. She looks over into Draco’s eyes – they catch the firelight and glow with eerie oranges and reds – and frowns at him.

“Harry is my best friend.”

“Well he’s not mine, and you know that. I despise the bastard,” Draco answers with forced lightness, the shadows under his eyes deepened by the way the lighting casts over his face in shadows and sweeps. “I’m not going to worship the pathetic little prat just because we – I –”

He breaks off and they stare at each other wordlessly, lips parted and pupils dilated, and Hermione isn’t sure what she wishes Draco would say, if indeed she wants him to say anything at all. He doesn’t and the air grows thick with tension, and Hermione looks away into the fire.

“You don’t have to worship him,” she says softly. “But you don’t have to be rude either. At least, not while I’m in earshot.” It feels strange giving Draco an order like this, and she avoids his eyes, palms sweating. The fire makes the room too hot, and she strips off her jersey and loosens her tie and hooks it off her head before she continues. “I’ll go if you’re going to be nasty about my friends.”

Draco sounds angry when he replies, a frustrated anger that is barely stifled. “As you wish.” His voice is mocking, but he leans into her turned away face and his lips are warm and gentle on the corner of her mouth. She turns her head with a sigh, giving in to the want and affection that well up in her, and Draco’s hand comes up to cup the back of her head as they kiss. Hermione can feel the anger in him in the way he dominates the kiss; his tongue in her mouth making her pulse with arousal, his teeth nipping her lip and making little bursts of pain-pleasure blossom, the roughness of his fingertips pressing too hard into her scalp. The fire is hot on Hermione’s left side as she twists awkwardly on the settee and sinks onto Draco, _into_ him. Into the kiss, his arms, the thin, wiry heat of him, the bulge of his erection bumping against her thigh as she half-kneels, half-falls into his lap.

This is what they do mostly, here in the Room. This is the best part – when they snog madly – and Hermione thinks she might be addicted to it, to him. That is a safer theory than the other one she has, a theory which would probably better explain why it feels as though her heart has expanded painfully and her hands itch to touch Draco whenever she sees him. The possessiveness and worry and affection directed toward Draco. But that theory is bad and wrong and dangerous, so Hermione tries not to think of it.

Draco’s hand shifts to beneath her shirt, and his fingers creep up over her stomach and still higher as his lips tease distractingly at her sensitive earlobe. She forgets about her annoyance with Draco, forgets about her guilt and theories as his long-fingered hand cups her breast over her plain cotton bra. The pale blue material is thin, and thrilling shocks run from her breasts to her womb when he tweaks first her left nipple, then her right, his touch sharp and skilful. He _drags_ the pleasure out of her, rips it out in waves and bright blooms, and Hermione squirms on his lap and whimpers into his mouth as she captures it and sucks on his bottom lip.

Impatient, Draco draws away a little and Hermione moans at the loss, and then he is undoing her shirt buttons slowly, his eyes glued to hers – one shadowed grey and the other flickering with reflections of leaping flames. Hermione’s heart is in her throat and her breath shudders in and out shallow and hard.

“Is this all right?” Draco murmurs and she nods, afraid to trust her voice, because her throat feels thick and clogged.

They shift when her last button is undone – he leaning against the back of the settee with his shoes on the thick carpet, and she on his lap, straddling him with the fire hot on the soles of her feet and her shirt open. Hermione has never gone this far before, and she is rigid with an apprehensive kind of want. She helps Draco strip off her shirt, and then he is staring at her in the glow of the fire with a look in his eyes that is frighteningly tender and greedy at once. His hands hold her waist while he bows his head to the tops of her breasts; the gentle swells that rise out of her low cut bra cups. Her fingers knot in his fine pale hair, and she shuts her eyes and shivers.

Draco is gentle and light, and then wet and rough; decorous kisses alternating with sweeps of his tongue and sucking bites. Hermione can feel the hardness of his erection pressing against her crotch acutely, her school skirt flared out so that only her knickers and his clothes are between her and his cock. She feels more aroused than she has ever been in her life, so dizzy and reckless with lust that when Draco cups her knicker-clad bum and kneads it firmly she doesn’t protest. Her fingers are tangled too-hard in his hair, and she rocks her hips in small, insistent motions that make Draco groan faintly against the sensitised skin of her breasts.

It isn’t until he starts to unhook her bra that her need gives way to self-consciousness, and fear that they are going too fast. The mood is dampened and Hermione clasps hold of Draco’s arms and pushes them gently away. He meets her eye and sees her reluctance, and slumps back into the settee.

“Shit.” Draco’s voice is frustrated but resigned, and he slides his fingers through his mussed hair, smoothing it down. “Merlin, Hermione, you’re torturing me.”

She feels slightly guilty and annoyed at that, and frowns. “I’m not stopping you from taking care of yourself, but I don’t have to show you my chest if I don’t want to,” she says snippily and he snorts.

“ _Chest?_ Really?” He sits forward again, one arm looping around her waist and she leans back, uncertain.

“I’m not going to take your bra off,” he assures her snarkily, and Hermione lets him kiss the rounded swell of one breast again. “Don’t call it a chest, Hermione. They’re tits, knockers, or breasts, and they’re fucking delicious and luscious – but _never_ call them a bloody _chest._ ” He punctuates each word with a wet kiss, and the hairs stand up on Hermione’s arms and she whimpers blissfully. Then his mouth is on her bra, and he is licking the material where her nipple is, and she jerks and gasps at the shock of the sensation. His tongue teases her nipple erect, and then he closes his lips and teeth around it through the thin cotton of her bra, and sucks and licks wetly and Hermione’s pussy clenches and spasms and her clit throbs hard.

“ _Oh._ ” Her fingers claw and dig into his shoulders. “Oh _god_.”

And then Draco pulls away and smirks at her arousal and her frustration, and her head is reeling, her knickers damp and a wet spot on her bra over her left nipple, which is begging for more attention. She tries to stifle a mewl of loss.

“And what was that you said about wanking?” Draco asks and Hermione blushes hot and Draco’s smirk widens. “Salazar save me, I love that colour,” he murmurs and she feels even hotter and yet shivering cold under the intensity in his eyes as he rubs a thumb over her cheek. She doesn’t know how to respond, so she just turns her face and kisses his thumb gently. She feels rocked by the improbability of her sitting astride Draco Malfoy, trying to wordlessly communicate a depth of feeling that she shouldn’t have for him. From his expression, Hermione thinks Draco feels much the same way.

They end up sprawled on the settee, Draco not going through on his threat to wank, thank Merlin. Hermione has no idea how she would have reacted to that, but it probably would have been embarrassing one way or the other. She is still shirtless at Draco’s wheedling request, lying between his legs and leaning against his front, and his fingers trace patterns on her stomach as she skims through his Charms essay.

“We could be doing far more enjoyable things,” he protests and Hermione answers absently as she highlights a mistake for him to correct later.

“Your marks are terrible in nearly every class, Draco; you need to get them back up, and it only takes half an hour for me to look through your work.”

He sighs. “I don’t meet you here so that we can waste the time studying.”

Hermione makes a sharp, frustrated sound and flings down the self-inking quill, abruptly fed up with the ambiguity that remains between them. She knows why he was interested in her in the first place, but she doesn’t understand why he _keeps_ meeting her. Surely her being kind is not a good enough reason for _this_. She twists to look at him.

“Why _do_ you keep meeting me here, then?” She speaks roughly and harshly, and Draco flinches in surprise and his eyes go a stonier shade of grey. “And don’t give me some glib, offensive answer about it being for the snogging, either, because you’re the only person who has ever touched me like that, my – my –” She wants to say _breasts_ but can’t manage to say the word, but she knows Draco understands from the way his eyes widen. “And if you make light of it, I might just murder you,” she ends ferociously, and he snaps his mouth shut.

“But…” he begins, still seemingly disbelieving that tonight was the first time she’d ever let anyone take off her shirt, and she glares.

“Are you really surprised, Draco? Now answer the bloody question – why do you keep meeting me?”

He swallows hard, his eyes never leaving hers and she holds his gaze with an effort; it burns straight through her. “Because I’m an idiot,” he tells her in a voice that is tired and resigned, and that’s not good enough. She wants a better reason than what he told her last time she asked.

Hermione tells him so. “That’s not an answer. I want to know _why_. Really, _really_ why.” She is in her bra and skirt nestled between Draco Malfoy’s legs, and she needs to know what this is, or she thinks she might go mad.

“Because I have to.”

She blinks. “Because you _have_ to? _Because you have to?_ What is that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t want to know,” Draco says, and Hermione is up on her feet in a flash, scooping up her shirt and glaring down at him while worst-case scenarios spin sickly through her head.

“Yes, actually, I do,” she snaps as she jerks on her shirt and begins buttoning it, and then he is standing too and his hands close over hers, stilling them. Draco’s face is filled with more tightly-controlled emotion than Hermione can handle, and she freezes. There is fear, need, desperation, and shame, written raw and sharp in those grey eyes and the set of his full mouth, and Hermione wants to run.

“It’s ironic,” he says quiet and slow. “You’re all I have.”

It’s truth – she recognises that immediately – and it’s painful in so many ways; breaks her heart for him and makes her wonder if he’s just using her, at the same time. Her eyes sting and her heart is thundering, the heat of the fire is fierce on her back, standing this close. What?” she asks ineloquently, nearly speechless, and Draco’s eyes are burning with reflected flame, his hands still tight over hers.

“You’re the only person at Hogwarts who likes me even a little –” Draco’s hands fall away and he half-turns from her, his fists clenching at his sides. “– which is fucking ironic as hell, considering how much I hated you.”

“Hat _ed_?” she asks, just to be sure.

“Yes hat _ed_.” He mimics her intonation. “I don’t bloody hate you now; I would’ve thought that was obvious, Hermione.”

“I –” Hermione is at a loss, and Draco moves behind her to the mantelpiece braces his hands there for a moment, before beginning to pace as she turns and watches him.

“You’re the only one who seems to like me –” He pauses, eyes looking a little wild. “You do, don’t you? Right?”

“Yes,” she whispers, choked up with tears at the fact that he needs to check, and Draco lets out a harsh breath of reliefs and resumes pacing.

“You know about my…the…you know, and you don’t think I’m sick or disgusting. You had no reason to keep my secrets, or do anything but hate me and treat me like shit, but you didn’t. You’re the only fucking person I have at Hogwarts, Hermione.” His pale skin is stained in oranges, red and golds, and there is a tension buzzing through him, his jaw clenched and eyes narrowed, hair falling over his forehead as he bows his head. “Everything is fucked up. Everything is hell, this year – you have no idea, no fucking idea – and then I come here, and you…”

“I what?”

“You look at me with those eyes and smile, and you let me touch you, and you kiss me, and we talk, and all that other shit just falls away, for a little while.” He paces back to Hermione and stops, staring down and she nearly forgets to breathe as she meets his eyes. “I’m an idiot because I’m supposed to hate you, and try as I might, I still don’t.”

She steps forward crossing that last gap between them, and her hands slide up his arms to rest on the crisp white cotton that covers his shoulders.

“You don’t?” she asks, looking for more from Draco than just an admittance that he doesn’t hate her, or that she is just the only person who is nice to him. Hermione wants – needs – the assurance of _feelings_ , and he tips his mouth in a small smile.

“I like you. Like snogging you, like talking to you – Merlin damnit I like just being _near_ you, Hermione. I shouldn’t, but I do. So, I keep coming to meet you here because the idea of not meeting you, being alone again without…you…is unbearable.” His hands cup her face and tilt it up to him, and what he has just said is the most romantic thing Hermione has ever heard in her life. And it was directed at her, from Draco Malfoy, and has prompted feelings that terrify her even as she embraces them. If she has been standing on the edge of a cliff, now she flings herself off it, reckless madness. She expresses none of these feelings aloud, though.

“I don’t know why I – how this started, still. I felt sorry for you, of course–” she begins, and Draco’s face hardens at that, looking older than his sixteen years and she rushes on. “– and you weren’t horrible anymore either, and then when I saw you in here that first time, doing… _that_ …I realised then that I was, ah, attracted to you.” Hermione takes a shuddering breath. “And then we kissed, and you were so _different_ , and then we talked, so – and I – and now I’m keeping your secrets, and lying to my friends, and not telling a soul about the cabinet – and I _know_ I should because –”

“I can’t let you,” he interrupts coldly and Hermione sees that he is serious, and she is afraid for a flashing, icy moment. “I can’t let you do that, Hermione. I l-like you a great deal, but I can’t let you tell anyone about that.” Draco’s hands shift from her face to her hair and there is a controlled threat in the way he fists handfuls of it and tugs, to tilt her head further up. There is fear stark on his face, and his eyes are thundercloud dark and pleading.

“What _is_ it? What are you _doing?_ ” Hermione demands, unafraid because if he tries anything she will hex him into oblivion, and besides; despite the threat in his expression she doesn’t think Draco will hurt her. He looses her hair and kisses her parted lips.

“Nothing your friends would approve of, but nothing that could hurt anyone else, either,” he tells her with his darkened eyes steady on hers. Hermione wonders for a moment how skilled a liar Draco Malfoy is, before nodding and accepting his words. She _wants_ to believe him.

“I won’t tell then. Not unless I find out you’re lying.”

“You won’t,” he says, not _‘I’m not’_ and Hermione chooses to believe him and squashes the small part of her that is acutely aware of his word choice.

“Good,” she says and kisses him hard, and their last half hour together this evening is lost to a haze of bliss.

* * *

**6 th May, 1997**

She isn’t sure if they are girlfriend and boyfriend, really. They talk about many things curled together on the settee in their sanctuary, but the nature of their relationship is never one of the topics. They have been meeting in secret since the 15th of April – exactly three weeks today – and for the past two weeks Hermione’s excuse to Harry and Ron has been that she is going to the library to study on her own, without their antics to distract her. They seem to have accepted that, just as Harry has accepted Hermione’s casual comment that she’s all but given up on getting into the Room now. She has kept hold of the Map though, and Harry has not asked for it. He has other things on his mind.

Every day, Hermione and Draco go to meals, classes, and pass each other in the corridors as if they are strangers and enemies still, and every second evening they are together in the Room, tangled up like lovers although they have still not yet done the deed. Hermione isn’t ready, and Draco never pushes. She leaves her knickers on, and he his boxers – and unbuttoned shirt, which makes an ignored corner of her mind nervous – and they talk and touch and snog. Sometimes Draco rubs his thumb over her clit through her knickers until she comes apart in orgasm, and sometimes she tugs his boxers down and fists his erection, her hand sliding up and down until he cums over the pale skin of his abdomen.

Last night, Hermione remembers, as Quidditch chatter goes on around her and she nibbles at her toast, Draco didn’t wear boxers. He wore blue-grey silk knickers pushed down on his thighs so his cock jutted out above the waistband, and every touch of her hand had made him shiver and gasp. He had been wound so tight, so aroused it had seemed almost painful, and whimpers had broken his lips as she had slid her hand tightly up and down, his foreskin rolled back in his arousal to reveal a flushed head that fascinated Hermione.  Draco’s eyes had been riveted on the sight of his cock, above the shoved-down silky girls’ knickers, and Hermione’s hand curled around it. He had cum so hard Hermione had thought he might shatter.

She smiles to herself and swipes a bit of marmalade off the corner of her lips with her index finger, sucks it off and from the corner of her eye she sees Draco watching her. The briefest smirk flashes on his face at the sight of her with her finger in her mouth, sucking on it so her cheeks hollowed, and she flushes. She thinks, with excitement and trepidation, that she knows what they might try tonight. Her pulse races and she can’t stop staring at Draco with her finger still in her mouth, even though she knows it is dangerous, in the open like this.

“Hermione?” Ron’s laughing voice cuts through her dizzied thoughts. “‘Mione, what in Merlin’s name are you doing?”

Her eyes fly to Ron and she jerks her finger out of her mouth, staring at him wide-eyed. Guilt thuds through her like blood, and her heart is squeezed tight with sudden adrenaline at being caught like this.

“You looked like a fish,” Ron offers, grinning but puzzled.

“Marmalade,” Hermione mutters by way of explanation, and that is all it takes for Ron to nod knowingly. It is reasonable to Ron that sucking on a fingerful of marmalade would send one off into a blissful marmalade daydream. Hermione summons a smile, and then Ron is shovelling porridge hidden beneath a thick crust of brown sugar into his mouth, and nodding away and speaking with his mouth full as the boys continue discussing Quidditch practice. Hermione feels mostly relief at not being discovered and fondness for Ron, but beneath those is an undercurrent of simmering arousal, and despite her best efforts her eyes keep flicking back to Draco throughout breakfast.

Later that day Hermione will be crying alone in the Room as Draco lies in the hospital wing, nearly dead from the spell from that damn potions book that Harry will cast at him. Unable to support Harry and unable to be at Draco’s bedside, Hermione will curl up on the settee and weep until her throat is raw and her eyes swollen, wondering what she did to deserve the mess she is in. But she doesn’t know that now – now, she smiles stupidly at her breakfast plate and thinks about what she and Draco will do together that evening.

* * *

 

**Thursday 15 th May, 1997**

_‘Why?’_ she asks him occasionally. Why does he find wearing girls’ knickers and a skirt so arousing, so appealing. He gives her stiff short reasons that are not the truth, and sometimes says he doesn’t know, or changes the topic altogether. Until now, this time, when he finally tells he that he has always liked it, ever since he started thinking about sex and wanking. Draco tells her insistently that he doesn’t want to dress in girls’ clothes all the time, just when he’s getting himself off, and Hermione nods, her fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt.

“It would be fine if you did though. Liked wearing girls’ clothes all the time, I mean,” she says shyly, and Draco arches an eyebrow at her.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I really don’t, Hermione,” he says, caught somewhere between embarrassed and amused. Hermione’s fingers spider their way over to Draco’s shirt cuff, fiddling with his cufflink and she can feel him take a deep breath, his chest and abdomen expanding against her side. She sits curled on his thighs on her side, knees jammed against the back of the settee, resting on his torso, with her elbow propped up on the settee arm by his head. It is rather awkward, but lovely nonetheless.

“Why Hufflepuff? Why all those things you were, ah, saying, that first time…?”

He goes red and shakes her hand from his cuff , and she feels herself lift upwards infinitesimally as he takes another deep breath. His hand captures hers and he stares at their intelinked hands instead of her eyes, his cheeks still blotched red.

“You don’t have to answer,” Hermione hurries, and Draco shakes his head.

“No. It’s fine.” He pauses and when he speaks again he is painfully factual and hard. “It’s simple. As a rule, I loathe Hufflepuffs. That’s why.” He stops then, and looks at her as though that should explain it, but she doesn’t understand.

“Why would you want to –” And then she remembers what he had been saying while he wanked, and it is her turn to go red as she belatedly understands. “Oh… I see.”

Draco loathes Hufflepuffs, and he loathes himself, and that realisation makes her squirm and cringe and her heart wrench a little. “Always, or…?”

Draco sighs and his tone is clipped. “No. This past year, since my father…”

 _Went to Azkaban,_ Hermione finishes for him in her head, and a possessive protectiveness brings her hand up to his face, tracing the lines of it as she kisses him again and again, effectively ending theh conversation. There are some things it is better not to talk about.

When they do begin talking again, it is about Hermione; her mum and dad, her pre-Hogwarts childhood, and Draco listens with his eyes on her face and he looks wistful. She thinks he might be a little envious of her for the way she calls her parents ‘mum’ and ‘dad’, not mother and father, and because she has so many memories of days out, and holidays, and stories that make her dissolve into hysterical laughter even as she tries to tell them.

Draco keeps asking her to tell more though, his hands laced over her stomach as she lies back on him with her head resting on his chest. She keeps talking eagerly, racking her brain to try to dredge up more memories worthy of sharing, partly because he wants her too, and partly because this moment is one she wants to sustain as long as she can. There is a peace to this, a normality that fills the Room, and she breaths it in with each lungful of air, it buoys her like helium and happiness. Draco’s heartbeat in her ears and his arms snugged around her middle heavy and warm. It is a small, fleeting snippet of perfection.

She hates that it will have to end, sooner, and later.

* * *

 

**Monday 19 th May, 1997**

The study that the Room transforms into for them is silent when Hermione slips inside, an hour after dinner. She knows from the Map and Draco’s absence at dinner in the Great Hall that he has been up here for hours already, but the fireplace is burnt down to embers, and it seems empty.

“Draco?” Hermione knows he must be in here; he’s probably been working on the cabinet. She remembers the small dead animals, and she feels suddenly sick and sweaty. “Draco?” The carpet is thick and soft beneath her shoes as she walks further into the study, and she thinks of the animals and her heart races. What if he’s done something, and hurt himself, or someone else? Hermione realises with terrible, frightening clarity that she should have told Headmaster Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall about Draco’s secret project long ago. Merlin knows what he might have done, and if he or someone else is hurt, it will be her fault. Then she sees Draco and all her worry vanishes in a flash, retreating to the back of her mind like ghosts; whispers that are easy to ignore and suppress.

Draco is sprawled on the settee in a deep sleep, with one hand tucked up under his chin and the other splayed flat on his stomach, his white-blonde hair mussed. His face is peaceful in sleep, his breathing slow and even, and Hermione feels a tenderness towards him that scares her. She crouches down by his side, and brushes her fingertips over his cheek, feeling a faint rasp of boyish stubble, and he murmurs and his lips curve into a smile.

“Draco,” she says into his ear, fingers still smoothing over his cheeks, and his hand comes from beneath his chin to wrap around her fingers.

“Hermione,” he answers her drowsily, still smiling, and it is a sweet, unguarded smile as his grey eyes flutter open and fix on her face. “I – I –” He blinks twice and his eyes clear and his smile fades and hardens a little. “I must have fallen asleep.” He sits up and runs his fingers through his hair, scrubs his hands over his face. “What’s the time?”

“Just past seven; you missed dinner.”

“I was busy,” he says, a bright, feverish look to him, and she knows immediately that he’s talking about the cabinet and that something’s happened. Hermione sits down on the edge of the couch when he makes room for her, and he is fidgety and nervy as she takes her shoes off.

“You succeeded. At fixing that cabinet,” she states, and Draco looks away, uncomfortable and guilty. He doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t have to. Hermione’s mood darkens, like clouds blotting out a winter sun, and she worries. He has finished the project that stinks of Dark Magic, that has left small animals dead, that he has lied about to her. Draco told her it isn’t dangerous, what he’s doing, but Hermione knows that was a lie - she has always known it was a lie. If she had any common sense she would have never started this relationship with Draco, but she has and now she has feelings and doesn’t want to betray him.

“Will you tell me what it’s for, now it’s done?” She stares into grey eyes that are set in shadows and intense with frightened victory, and waits for an answer.

“No.”

“Draco, please...I can’t let you just -” She wants him to understand but he doesn’t; he refuses to compromise.

“No. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Anger floods Hermione at the course her life has taken to lead her here now - this should not be her life, torn between Draco and what is right. She should not be even contemplating keeping the cabinet a secret any longer, but she is and it makes her furious that Draco and her feelings towards him have compromised her integrity.

“You wouldn’t refuse to tell me if it wasn’t something terrible, Draco!” She stands before him, arms crossed over her chest and hating him and herself. “Is it for Voldemort? Are you a Death Eater?”

He hesitates for the briefest second. “No, Hermione. I swear it’s not.”

But it’s too late; he hesitated and she knows what that means. Maybe she’s known all along and just refused to admit it to herself. She can feel herself flushing hot all over with anger, shaking with betrayal. “Liar,” she snarls at him, and when he stands she hits at him, tears blurring her vision, and shouts it. “ _Liar!_ ”

He grabs her arms and shakes her, and she flails against him, the heels of her hands slamming into his chest. “I’m not! I’m not! I swear to Merlin, I’m not, Hermione! It’s not for Voldemort, it’s for my mother!” Draco shouts the last with a final vigorous shake, and she stops struggling.

“Your mother? What the hell do you mean, Draco? Tell me. Now,” she demands, pulling away from him and dashing tears from her cheeks. Draco shuts his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again they are clear, honest, vulnerable grey.

“The cabinet is Dark Magic, yeah. But I’m not doing it for Voldemort, I’m doing it for my mother. If I don’t, she’s going to die.”

Hermione eyes him hard. “Die? How? And what’s the cabinet supposed to do?”

“It’s a rare, incurable condition, that’s going to slowly kill her in agony. It’s hard to explain, and I won’t tell you how the cabinet will fix it, because you won’t approve of the Dark Magic involved, but it will save her life.”

Hermione searches his face, eyes darting over his thin, fine features. “At what cost?”

“My soul,” he jokes and laughs weakly, and Hermione doesn’t think it’s funny.

“Draco...”

“Trust me?”

“Why would I?”

“Because I...” He trails off but Hermione can hear the unspoken words hanging in the air. They have been dancing around that for quite a while now, each afraid to express their feelings, for many reasons. It hasn’t been long enough, they’re supposed to be enemies, it would be insanity, it could never work out – this is an aberration, a limbo, and outside of the Room they have nothing. Even now when he is pleading with her, he won’t say it, leaving the faintest hint of doubt in her mind, protecting himself from total vulnerability. And in the end it doesn’t matter anyway, because one day they will leave Hogwarts and the Room behind, and Hermione cannot picture being with Draco like this in anything other than secret. No one would accept their relationship; Hermione herself has a hard time accepting it, unless she couches it in terms of it being an anomaly restricted to this Room.

“Because I wouldn’t lie to you,” he tells her firmly.

“You’re not using the cabinet for Voldemort?”

“I’m using it to save my mother’s life.” He takes her hand and she allows him to hold it, his thumb and fingers pressing and probing along the lines of her tendons and bones.

“And you’re not a Death Eater?”

“I would never choose that. Never. I’m not like my father, Hermione. I don’t aspire to be a slave to you-know-who. That’s the last thing I want.”

She looks for the truth in his face, but she can see no trace of truth or lies. Just his clear grey eyes that are filled with feelings that make her heart hurt, and his full lips that are pressed into a thin line as he waits for her to believe him.

“Trust me,” he says – begs – and Hermione feels like she is being squeezed in the grasp of a giant’s fist. Her chest feels tight and restricted, and she can’t seem to draw in any air. How can she decide? He’s asking her to choose who has her loyalty – her friends or him. He’s asking her to decisively abandon the clear-cut area of ‘right’ and sink into a dangerous mire of moral and ethical grey. Hermione has always done the right thing – up until Draco Malfoy became more than an enemy to her. She shuts her eyes against the sight of him, but she can hear him breathing, feel the smooth of his hand over hers, and the heat of his body he stands so close.

“I trust you,” she tells him when she opens her eyes, and she knows Harry and Ron would be screaming at her idiocy if they knew. “I trust you, Draco.”

And if anyone is a liar here, maybe it is her.

* * *

 

 

**Wednesday 4 th June, 1997**

Hermione is worried when she reaches the Room. Draco has been tense and distant lately, and even though he has apparently completed his work with the cabinet, he is still hollow-eyed and tired all the time. If anything, he looks worse, and he is twitchy and snappish with her at times, which nowadays is out of character. He acts like he is plotting murder, and that scares Hermione because _what-if_. She pushes the door open and slips inside, and his familiar white-blonde head is not visible on the settee. And then she sees him and her world lurches and rocks on its axis.

Draco is sitting on the floor leaning against one of the bookcases, a bottle of firewhiskey in his right hand, and his left sleeve soaked through with crimson. The once crisp, clean white of it is saturated, sticking to his skin, and she knows immediately it is not wine, or paint, or anything except his own blood. Her heart judders and skips in ragged beats and her breath sounds too loud in her ears as she goes to him.

“Draco!” She crouches down at his side, balancing herself with one hand, and his eyes are wounded as he lifts his head and raises his blood-drenched left arm to her like a sacrifice. She claps a hand over her mouth and whimpers.

“It won’t come off,” he says in the slur of a drunk, the words rounded and sloppy, and horribly wretched. “I’ve tried and tried but it won’t come off.” Draco sounds like a little boy apologising, and Hermione feels heavy and sickened as she takes his hand and slowly pushes up the wet, heavy sleeve. Then the fragile, carefully-constructed bubble that she and Draco have created here in the Room pops. Hermione feels as though she has been punched in the gut, all the air driven out of her, deflated and winded and gasping for breath that just won’t come.

He is right; it won’t come off. It won’t.

Hermione’s chest fills with an unbearable pressure and her throat clicks stickily as she swallows, her eyes sting and her vision wavers. Draco has sliced the flesh on the inside of his arm to bloodied ribbons of meat, and still the Dark Mark is there, a terrible stain behind the blood, evil emanating from it tangibly. She sinks the rest of the way to the floor, her breath finally catching in, in shivers and gasps.

“Harry was right,” she says numbly. “How stupid of me.”

How terribly, utterly, _stupid._ Hermione has been consorting with a Death Eater for weeks upon weeks now. She may not have told him, or anyone but Crookshanks, but she has fallen in _love_ with a Death Eater. It is a fact she has tried to deny but cannot. She stuffs her fists against her mouth and stares at Draco helplessly and horrified. What has she done? What has _he_ done? Draco looks up at her pleadingly, and is so hurt, so vulnerable and ashamed, and Hermione begins to cry at the mess she has found herself in, because she is in too deep. So deep she cannot see the light of the sky anymore, and the pressure is crushing her.

She can’t just walk away and tell Harry about Draco like she would have two months ago; it’s too late for that now. She _loves_ him, she thinks, and she can’t just tell on him and wash her hands of this. She cares about him too much, Mark or not.

“Oh god… _why?_ ” she demands through her hands at her lips, voice muffled and wrenched, and Draco touches the flayed flesh over the Mark thoughtfully. Hermione cringes at the pain his touch must cause, but his expression shows none of it, just a dull despair.

“I didn’t have a choice, Granger. I didn’t want to. With my father in Azkaban, the Dark Lord –” That word coming from his mouth makes her bones crawl with horror. “– demanded I take his place.” Draco lifts his eyes from his flayed open forearm to her face, and she nearly cannot hold his gaze. “You don’t say no to the Dark Lord.”

No, Hermione imagines that wouldn’t work out well. Her stomach turns and she realises she is trembling, one fist still pressed so hard against her mouth that her lips are crushed painfully against her teeth. She makes herself lower her hand and licks her lips.

“I told you the truth, sort of.” He is still slurring, but his eyes are sane now. “I’m doing it to save my mother’s life; I never chose this, I don’t _have_ a fucking choice. The Dark Lord will kill my mother if I – if I –” He sucks in a breath and his hands shake. “Please don’t hate me Hermione.” Her name is a plea on his pale lips and her shoulders begin to shake with the force of her silent tears. Draco begins again. “He said he’d kill my mother if I didn’t kill Dumbledore by the end of the school year.”

“Oh… _oh_ …” Hermione’s breath leaves her in a rush, and she wipes at her tears with unsteady fingers. Her minds is racing and ticking over, sorting through everything she should have seen, should have noticed, but instead choose to ignore. “Tell me,” she says. “Everything.”

So he does. The Vanishing Cabinet, Ron, Katie Bell – everything comes out and Hermione can’t stand hearing it while he stares at her with those dulled grey eyes, filled with self-loathing and the expectation of her hatred. It is too much. Hermione should have known no good could come of whatever this is that she and Draco have created together. She should have known it could only end in tears. There is nothing she can say, and she presses her lips together tightly and her nails bite into her palms as Draco falls silent and she tries to process the stark, ugly truth that hid behind their veneer of sanctuary, the illusion of caring. Only it was not an illusion, and that might be what hurts her the most.

She uses her wand to slice a length of her school shirt off along the hem, and transfigure it into a bandage, feeling numb and overwhelmed. Their eyes meet again as Hermione cleans the blood from Draco’s arm and bandages it with careful tenderness, shuddering as her fingers brush over the Mark. He begins to cry softly as she draws down his sleeve and _scourgifies_ the blood out of it, buttons his cuff. It is terribly sad, seeing him like this, and beneath Hermione’s numbness is a deep rage that rails and screams against the unfairness of it all. The horrible, terrible unfairness of it. Neither of them deserve this, and she is filled with fury that beats against the numbness but cannot find a way through; not yet.

“Hermione…” Draco’s voice is clogged with tears and blurred with firewhiskey, and she stares intently into his bloodshot grey eyes, _begging_.

“Come with me to Dumbledore. Tell him everything. He’ll protect you, Draco.” She puts all of herself into that plea, but as soon as it has left her lips, she knows it will not be enough. He shakes his head minutely.

“My mother. He can’t protect her.” He has accepted the role of murderer; Hermione can see it clearly in the set of his features and the slump of his shoulders, and she hates the sight of it. But would she be able to sentence her mother to death? _Merlin_. She doesn’t know if she could kill, but then again, _she doesn’t know_. She might. But she would hope the people who loved her would stop her from doing it, whatever choice she felt forced to make, because she knows that her mother would not want that. She knows that you cannot trade one life for another and not be irreparably changed, and twisted by it.

She pushes herself to her feet, a heavy dread coating her bones as she accepts _her_ choice, and Draco raises his head, his features carrying a shadow of plaintiveness. “Hermione, please…”

“Please _what?_ ” she asks too harshly, because her head is swimming and she is wounded and wondering how much of _this_ , all of it, was a lie, and the numbness is retreating and she just wants to _lash out._ And he is there, and she thinks she might hate him, just a little bit, and she knows she despises herself, blames herself for being in this position, where it feels like every solution is the wrong one, and there is no way to win.

“Please…” he repeats helplessly, dazed and incoherent with the firewhiskey, and she fists her hands at her sides and shakes her head, because she knows what he is asking.

“I have to tell, Draco. I don’t have a _choice_.”

He just sits slumped there as she backs away, her knuckles brushing reassuringly against her wand, sticking out of her pocket. He makes no move to stop her by force, as she feared he would, just watches her and that is nearly worse.

“Hermione,” he begins, and she is at the door and pauses with her breath caught in her chest, hoping against hope that he will say he’ll go to Dumbledore. “I think I love you,” he says instead, broken and wondering, and Hermione cannot stand it any longer. She turns and wrenches the door open, shoving it shut behind her and running from Draco and his damning words as fast as she can. But she can’t get away; they ring in her head like a death sentence.

* * *

 


	6. Chapter Six

۞ **Part Six** ۞

**5 th June, 1997**

Hermione goes through the day in a daze. She tells a worried Harry and Ron and mildly concerned housemates that she thinks she’s getting the flu, and no, thank you, she doesn’t want to go see Madam Pomfrey. Her eyes are dry and stinging, her nose red and stuffy, and her throat raw, from the hours she spent curled up in a ball on her bed sobbing, the heavy drapes drawn shut and a silencing charm up. She didn’t fall asleep until dawn was approaching, and today she is exhausted in more ways than one, her eyes heavy and sticky and her sinuses aching, her bones feeling as if they have been replaced by lead weights, and her very _self_ as wrung out as an old rag.

She is numbed and in shock, shut down and locked into a holding pattern, unwilling to do anything or tell anyone until she sees Draco, once more. Her hand does not rise in class, and Professor McGonagall asks her if she feels quite well, and doesn’t seem convinced by Hermione’s excuse of the flu. The brusque, matter-of-fact Professor lets it go though; she seems to assume Hermione is having problems with matters of the heart, and is afraid to pry. It makes Hermione want to laugh and weep at once when Professor McGonagall pats her on the shoulder and tells her that life invariably works out for the best. Hysteria nearly overtakes her, and she spends all of lunch locked in a stall in the girls’ bathroom, fist stuffed in her mouth, biting down on her knuckles and crying.

Draco is absent from every class, and every meal, and when Hermione goes to the Room that night it is empty, even though she waits until after midnight. She tells herself she will give him until tomorrow night before she goes to Headmaster Dumbledore, who is back at school these past few days. Perhaps, she hopes because that is what she does – she is an incurable optimist – perhaps she will be able to somehow convince Draco to go to Headmaster Dumbledore after all. She has to try; she doesn’t want to betray him. But she has a feeling she will have to.

Hermione creeps through darkened, silent hallways, avoiding Filch and Mrs Norris, and when she reaches the Gryffindor common room it is nearly one o’clock in the morning and she is not tired. She is weary past the point of exhaustion, so mentally and emotionally drained that her brain and her chest almost seem to hurt, but she lies in bed for two whole hours and does not fall asleep. In the end she wraps a rug around her shoulders and goes downstairs, and sits in front of the common room fire and stares into the embers for a long time. She is still sitting there like a pale, hunched wraith wrapped in bright coloured crochet when the others rise the next morning, and dark circles ring her eyes.

* * *

 

**6 th June, 1997**

She tells anyone who asks that her flu is getting worse and she couldn’t sleep, and yes, she will go see Madam Pomfrey later. Draco is still absent from class, and Hermione finds herself daydreaming, unable to keep her attention fixed on lessons, like always. Her teachers watch her odd behaviour closely; Professor Flitwick asks if she is ill, and Professor McGonagall tells her confidingly that if she wishes to talk, to come see her in her office after dinner. Hermione nods and smiles, and has absolutely no intention of doing so.

She goes through the entire day in a daze, unaware of her surroundings, her mind turning her and Draco’s situation over and over, exploring every angle, trying to find a solution – there is none. By the end of the day, as she picks absently at her dinner, her optimism has fled her. She sits with shoulders slumped; ignoring the curious and worried stares around her and trying not to dissolve into tears in the Great Hall, in front of everyone.

Draco will refuse to be the cause of his mother’s death no matter how much Hermione pleads, and so she will go to Dumbledore. His mother will die, but Dumbledore – and Draco himself – will be saved, and she will lose him. She had always thought she would, eventually, but now the time has come – and like _this_ – it hurts so much she thinks she will die. She leaves dinner early, telling Harry and Ron she is going to go see Madam Pomfrey, and instead hides in the library for two hours and fruitlessly tries to force herself to come up with a plan that will fix everything.

It is nine in the evening when Hermione bolsters her courage enough to go to the Room, and when she enters he is there, sitting on the edge of the settee and staring into the fire. Hermione has the impression that Draco has been sitting there utterly motionless for hours; there is something in the stiff set of his shoulders, as if he has frozen into that position. She wonders if he really has been in here all day, just sitting and watching the flames. Draco looks up when she shuts the Room door behind her with a grate and a thud, and his face is expressionless, colourless except for the purplish dark stains of stress and sleeplessness beneath his eyes.

Hermione crushes her lower lip between her teeth and worries at it, searching for words and discarding all the possibilities she comes up with as she approaches him. Her heart is rabbit-quick and her palms are sweaty, she feels uncomfortably hot except for an icy dread in the core of her. She is at the end of the couch now; close enough to see the spider webbing of broken capillaries in Draco’s eyes, which have not moved from her face since he first looked up. It is unnerving, that stare, as though he is calculating things she doesn’t want to think about in that head of his; contemplating murdering her and stuffing her in the vanishing cabinet, perhaps.

How far would Draco Malfoy go to save his mother? And how does that balance out against how much he loves Hermione?

Her wand is up her sleeve, and the hard rub of it on the skin of her forearm is pitiful comfort, because she knows she would likely lose in a duel with Draco. She would hesitate, she is sure of it. He, she is not so sure about. She stands in front of the fire, the heat of it scorching on her bare legs, but she doesn’t move, just lets it bake her. Her mind is fumbling and grabbing for coherent speech, and she wishes she had written something down – a pre-prepared speech – and that stupid thought makes her suck in sharply on a half-laugh that is more sob and inhale than anything.

Draco’s eyes bore into her, they drill behind her eyes like he can see every frantic thought skittering through her head, and Hermione feels flayed open and vulnerable, and so helpless. She opens her mouth to say something, _anything_ that might sway him to listen to her, and he speaks.

“I have to do it.” He stands with a fluid grace, and he is tall and his wand is in his hand already, and Hermione feels small and heartsick. “You won’t persuade me otherwise, Hermione.” He sounds desperately afraid and his hand is trembling slightly, and Hermione wonders if she should hate him. She doesn’t. She can’t. Draco is determined to commit murder, to give Death Eaters free access to Hogwarts, and she isn’t surprised he loathes himself but she cannot condemn him either, because what lengths would she go to, to save her mum’s life?

And Hermione sees in Draco’s bloodshot eyes and the tight set of his thin shoulders that nothing she can say will dissuade him.

“I have to,” Draco says again, voice flat and dull now, and shifts his grip on his wand.

“I – I know,” she says, which is not what she planned to say at all, but it is the only thing left right now. Her voice is cracked and broken, and she doesn’t sound like herself at all. Draco’s lips flatten and the muscles in his jaw bunch up, he swallows hard and her name is a breath, a plea.

“Hermione.” He is raw, just like her, and neither of them want to do what she knows they will. Light and dark, good and evil, Dumbledore’s Army member and Death Eater, and the distance between them has never seemed so vast before as it does now, staring into his thin face, filled with shame and determination. Hermione closes the gap between them because it is all she can do, because she can’t just walk away without saying goodbye, because she wants this one last thing to cling to.

Her eyes flutter shut and a strange hurt blossoms in her chest as his wand tip presses into the hollow of her throat. She takes a breath, feeling the wood dig into the delicate flesh of her throat as she inhales, and opens her eyes. Hermione sees her hurt reflected in Draco’s eyes before she lifts her hand, and gently pushes his wand aside, and he lets her, his grey eyes grave, searching over her face. Up on tip toes then, and her hand braces on his shoulder; understanding blooms in those grave eyes and then his head dips and their lips meet.

Her tongue dances delicately over Draco’s bottom lip, and he presses his folded up wand hand between her shoulder blades to pull her closer. A moan is lost between their mouths as their lips part properly and their mouths mesh, tongue and lips and teeth and Hermione is dizzied, her breath is trapped in her chest, swelling her lungs painfully. Draco’s knuckles dig in her back, his wand jabs into the base of her skull, and her head is tipped too far back to be comfortable, but her fingers curl up into the muscle and bone of his shoulders and she surges forward into the hard warmth of him anyway.

He is a rock, rooted to the floor immovably, his mouth moving on hers and kissing her so slowly and thoroughly now that it makes her feel as if he is mapping her. Draco is committing her to memory, Hermione realises with a sharp pang that momentarily drives back the swelling ripples of arousal that are drowning her mind. He is memorising the feel and the taste of her, and the small hungry sounds she makes, so that he will always remember what it was like to kiss Hermione Granger. And she realises she is doing the same to him.

This is a goodbye, because no matter what happens exactly, once one of them leaves this Room, the last of what they have had will remain here, shredded and mutilated beyond all recognition.

Hermione makes a stifled, muffled sob as she pulls away from Draco, panic rising up and overwhelming her. Her hands come up in the air by her face, hovering and fluttering indecisively as she tries to shove down her tears. She fans her face and sniffs hard, but the sudden furious grief that seized her refuses to be pushed back down. Draco steps forward – to comfort her, she thinks – but his bloodshot grey eyes are cold as stones and his kiss-swollen mouth is flat, and she stumbles two jittering steps back from him.

“I just…need a moment,” she rasps and blinks and wipes her cheeks, clears her throat. Looks at him and sees a stranger who should _not_ be a stranger and shakes her head hard. “I can’t do this. I can’t…Draco, _please_.” Please don’t do it, please go to Dumbledore, but she can’t say the words aloud because she can’t bear to hear him say no again. She feels as if she is a geyser, waiting to explode, to come apart in rage and pain, and she can’t say goodbye because goodbye is _too hard_. She wants to run away like a coward; she does not feel like a Gryffindor right now.

But Hermione’s fingers flex and she takes his outstretched hand despite her insistences that she can’t, wrapping her hand around his fingers hard enough to grind their bones beneath the skin. She is a mess, shaking and sickened by what they will have to do after this, but she _wants_ this one last piece of sanctuary, she needs it like she needs to breathe. Hermione knows that it will only make it hurt more in the end, afterwards, but she will accept that pain. Draco is not a trembling mess, he is a living statue, as cold and blank as if he doesn’t care in the slightest, but she knows he does. Draco slides his palm over hers and interlinks their fingers, and his hand is warm, and dry, and calloused from Quidditch and if Hermione lives to be two hundred, she will never forget the feel of it. His voice is carefully calm and even.

“It’s just us. Just you and me, Hermione. Here, in this moment. This is us. This is all we _have_.” Draco has never been so honest with her before, and she nods and her chin quivers, she whisks away her tears and her eyes sting and burn but stay dry, this time.

“Okay,” she whispers and buries herself willingly in the kiss that comes next, forces herself to forget everything but what he makes her fell. The minty-ness of his mouth, the hot slick of his tongue that makes her womb clench and her toes curl inside her shoes, the smooth blunt edges of his teeth, the firm, damp warmth of his lips, and how they mingle and tangle together so perfectly, with thrills and shivers and snaking coils of need roaring and rising in her like a living thing. The scent of him, the feel of his lean body bumping and shifting against hers, the way the ends of his fringe fall forward to brush against her forehead.

Hermione moans and mewls as she slips her arms around his neck, and his hands are on her back and her cheek, and both of them are trying to press together as if they can soften and melt and sink into each other. Hermione shifts and hooks her leg up around Draco’s as their kiss grows ever more frantic – bunting together, nibbling, tongues swirling deep together and making her throb madly between her legs and her knickers are damp. The move of her leg unbalances them and they sway and wobble, and with a cry from Hermione and a grunt from Draco they go down in a half-controlled tangle onto the thick hearth rug.

And it is not a decision or a choice but an inevitability that they stay tangled on the floor in front of the fire, shedding their clothes like autumn leaves.

This is a goodbye, and Hermione will say it properly, with her hands and her mouth, with fire-heated skin and small moans, and legs that part willingly when Draco slides his calloused hands up over her knees and soft thighs. His mouth on her _there_ and it feels startlingly cool on her flesh, and she jumps and her thighs clap shut on his head. He grunts and makes a sound that could be a laugh or a protest, and his tongue drags down her slit and she shudders and jolts and her legs fall apart again, a low, rough moan ripped from her throat.

She doesn’t want him to stop, despite the small self-consciousness she feels – it is too good, he is too good, and she wants _more_. Draco _explores_ her, with fingers and tongue, and her face is hot from more than just the fire, and she shuts her eyes and grabs handfuls of his hair and bites her tongue on the whimpers and gasps he draws out of her. At first Hermione’s hands are on his head to assure herself she is in control, then to keep him there as he licks and sucks and works a finger slowly inside her, and then two, slowly thrusting and curling. Her body is a heated frenzy, and every cell of her is screaming with the need for _release_.

And then finally Hermione’s handfuls of Draco’s fine, platinum hair are a way to _hold on_ , to ride the waves of orgasm that buckle her, sweeping through her and turning her into a ball of rippling, wrenching pleasure. She curls up, her knees drawing up and her thighs slamming shut on Draco’s head, her back bowing forward so that her shuddering, gasping moans send hot breath rushing over the fingers she has wrapped in his hair. And then she arches back and her pelvis juts up, bum lifting right off the floor, legs falling open and cramped fingers stiffly loosing his hair.

She feels as though her bones have been replaced by quicksilver, and she feels hot, muscles turning to jelly as she falls limp on the thick rug and pants for air.

“Please,” she gasps when she catches her breath, and long, damp fingers walk up from her throbbing clit to her sternum.

“Please _what_?” Draco asks slyly, and she lifts her head and looks down at him between her legs. He is flushed with colour and his eyes are glazed and wicked, he licks his lips and smirks when she whimpers at the sight. Hermione is pulsing inside, needy and greedy, and coming wasn’t enough; she wants _him_ , buried inside her, filling her up. She is incoherent with the urgency of it and her fingers bite into his shoulders, trying to pull him up her body. He looks so smug she could kick him, but instead she wriggles and squirms with an aching need and tries to drag him up by the hair.

“Say it,” he says with swollen lips, and his pupil-swamped eyes are demanding on Hermione’s as he ignores the pain she must be inflicting on his scalp as she yanks at his hair. His fingers paly up and down her slit torturously, his thumb dragging over her clit now and then and sending shocks through her, making her twitch and hiss.

“Say it,” Draco demands and slides two fingers inside her, and she sobs, raw with desperation.

“Please. Draco, _please._ ” Hermione is so embarrassed she thinks she will die, but need overwhelms her self-consciousness after eight slow pumps of his fingers inside her exquisitely sensitive pussy. “Please, put it in me. In me. Screw me, shag me, _fuck_ me, just put your bloody cock _in me_ ,” she begs and orders at once when she breaks, nearly tearing his hair out by the roots, a low whine leaving her between words as she wriggles on his fingers. A slow smile curves Draco’s lips, and she stops wriggling and stares at him, because he is so beautiful in this moment. On his elbows between her thighs, with his fingers buried in her pussy and smiling with the firelight staining his pale hair gold and filling his eyes with silvery hints of oranges and reds, he is like some fey creature bent on delicious wickedness.

He is the most beautiful Hermione has ever seen him look, and a pressure wells up in her chest and she fights the urge to cry, because she will never see him like this again. It hurts like nothing else she has ever felt; it hurts like a death, like a betrayal, like a physical things tearing inside her chest. Tears weave and slip silently down her cheeks, and Draco’s smile fades and she mourns the loss of that, too. He moves up so they are face to face and he covers her, his skin cooler than hers, holding himself up on one elbow and swiping her tears away with his thumb while he makes soft, soothing sounds.

Draco’s cock is hard and hot against her upper thigh, but his eyes are gentle and clear, and he presses his lips to hers very tenderly. There is more tenderness there than she thought him capable of, and his fingers are a whisper when they brush down her nose and sweep out along her cheekbone. There is a question in his eyes.

“Don’t stop,” Hermione chokes and blinks hard, her hands cupping his face and her lips finding his again.

“Please,” she breathes against Draco’s mouth, and he nods once. He picks up his wand from where it lies abandoned nearby with hers, and Hermione stiffens on instinct, suspicious that Draco will use this moment to incapacitate her, and risk using an _obliviate_ to assure the safety of his plans. There is no hiding the mistrust that flashes over her flushed face, and Draco’s expression is briefly hurt before it hardens and turns unreadable, emotions hidden away.

“Contraceptive charm,” he says shortly and Hermione nods and trusts him enough to let him cast it, her heart in her throat. But the warmth of benign magic tingles in her belly for a moment instead of the shock of a stunning spell, and then he tosses his wand aside out of both their reach. Instead of thrusting into her immediately Draco turns his attention back to her mouth and kisses her for a long moment, deep and slow, tormenting her and making her blood heat and her skin itch with impatience. His hands shift to her breasts as he holds himself up on an elbow, and he tweaks her nipples, tugs at them as his tongue delves slick and slow in her mouth. It gives Hermione the time she needs to sink back into heavy, heady lust after her brief moment of tension, and she is grateful to him for knowing she needs it, and for giving her that.

Draco hand skims over her breast, waist and hip leaving wake of tingling goosebumps behind it, before sliding between their bodies. Their mouths move together slowly now, almost absently, as he sinks two fingers into her and groans at the slickness. Draco positions himself, and Hermione’s breath stops up in her lungs, she clutches at his shoulders and goes stiff and still as fear bubbles up.

“Breathe,” he tells her on his own exhale, the word a puff of cool air on her cheek. He is nudged firm against her entrance, and it is a foreign, alien feeling that makes her edge toward panic. She struggles to do as he says, wanting him but afraid because what if it hurts, what if it isn’t good, what if she ruins it?

“Relax,” he tells her next with a hint of amusement, and hunches so that his head dips to her breasts. His mouth is cool and wet on her nipples; first one, then the other, and she forgets her fear for the delicious pleasure of his tongue swirling over her hardened nipples, bolts of want skipping straight down to her belly.

“Oh god…oh _Merlin_ …Draco, I –” The words rush from her in jagged pants, and then he is pushing into her and her gasped words turn into a wavering groan of not-quite-pleasure. He feels too big for her body at first, and her eyes are wide and fixed on the ceiling, her fingers dig gouges in his shoulders. Then the sensation becomes the faint burn of her body stretching to accommodate him, but there is no real pain, and Hermione’s eyes flutter unseeingly and a sigh falls from her lips, her tensed muscles begin to unwind and relax.

Draco’s head is knocked against hers, and his hand is a vice on her hips, and he is gasping in short hisses through his teeth. He is inside her, all of his length, and he is shaking with the effort to hold still as Hermione adjusts to him filling her. Draco doesn’t want to hurt her, and that makes her stomach flip and her bones fizz along with warmth, but it doesn’t hurt, not really. Hermione was – is – sopping wet, and his fingers had helped prepare her, and now the feeling of being _uncomfortably_ filled is passing. Now it just feels…good.

Hermione grips his hips with her knees and juts her pelvis up and he shifts inside her, and they both moan raggedly.

“Fuck. H’mione. I…” Draco’s voice is thick and strained, his fingers bruise her hip, his other hand tangles in the hair behind her ear. She flattens her hips to the floor and then pushes them up again, wordlessly urging him to _move_. There is a building, aching need that tightens her womb and seethes outward through her, her every muscles ratcheting tight, and she feels like she is throwing off heat like a small sun. Draco’s forehead rests at her cheekbone and she mumbles incoherently in his ear.

“Please. Now. Now. I need – I _need_ …” Hermione is whining with the want, her nails scratching over Draco’s scalp. He lets out a plosive breath that rushes over her cheek and ear, and his hips pull back, he slides half out of her. Hermione makes a startled little cry at the sensation, her hand gripping his arm, and then his hips snap back and she lets out another raw, low cry that drowns out his own stifled moan. And then Hermione is clinging to him as he drives into her over and over, until she is gasping and nearly sobbing at the deep, wrenching pleasure of it.

She urges him on in half-formed sounds that he seems to understand because he goes harder and faster, and he is gasping her name and mumbling things between pants for air. “So good – feel so fucking… Fuck – Hermione… Merlin… Shit… You feel so fuck-fucking _good_ …” Her arms come up around his neck and her hands flatten on his shoulder blades, pressing him down to her so that she can feel the heavy weight of him, the drumbeat frenzy of his heart, the slip and slide of their sweat-slicked skin.

Hermione’s face is turned to his and their teeth clink as their mouths meet sloppily. Draco tastes salty with her own sweat and his kiss is fierce and possessive, and she matches that fierceness, both battling for control of the kiss and both losing to the sensation of him thrusting and stretching and filling her, until she feels like he is everywhere. Every inch of her body is thrumming and heated with the feel of him, and she yanks breath in through her nose in short pulls, clutching him tight to her with her hands and knees. The kiss loses coherence as Draco’s hips begin to jerk more erratically, and if his fingers press any harder into her hip Hermione thinks the bone might snap.

“I’m –” Draco chokes on an exhale, and she can feel the muscles of his back shifting and hardening beneath her hands.

“Oh… _fuck…_ ” Draco drives into her so deep it sends an ache shooting right through Hermione’s abdomen, and his head goes back, throat arched and bared, eyes slipping shut, biting his lips hard. He is flushed and sweat sticks his fringe to his forehead, the cords stand out in his neck, and Hermione can’t tear her eyes from him in this moment. Three, four, five more spasmodic thrusts, and she _feels_ his cum fill her in a muffled, vague sort of way, and the throaty little groan he makes sets of little waves of pleasure that make her insides clench and twitch like an echo of his orgasm. Hermione’s brain twirls dizzily, and her fingers will leave bruise marks on his arms.

Draco goes loose-boned and limp above her then, releasing her poor hip and falling onto his elbows so as not to crush her completely. His face is buried against her neck, and he is laying sloppy, sucking kisses there, satisfied little noises humming on her skin. Her hands move from his sweaty, hot arms, fingers shoving into his damp, mussed hair and cradling his head to her as her legs collapse apart and her stomach caves with an exhausted breath. He is still inside her, and there is an intimacy to this hot, sweaty, limp afterglow that almost eclipses the closeness of the sex. Almost.

Hermione feels well-used, but in a good way; deliciously dirty and achy and wet with their sweat. She combs her fingers through Draco’s hair, her limbs feeling all loose-jointed and wobbly, her hair plastered to her temples and cheeks in damp whorls, and Hermione just breathes in the moment. Draco is murmuring incoherencies as he smatters her with clumsy, urgent kisses that are somehow packed with grief, his slowing heartbeat thudding against her chest, and Hermione remembers then. The reality of their situation, hazed over and forgotten in pressing together hot skin, and sloppy, hungry kisses, and the rhythmic jerk of his hips, returns swiftly.

It is clouds sweeping over her mind, chasing away the sunlight, and Hermione is left in the shadows and dull red light the burnt-down fire casts over them, damp with sweat and aching between her legs, clutching Draco’s head to hers and know they would never do this again. Hermione could scream at the injustice of it, at the way it _hurts_ so much now it comes down to the moment, but her lips are clamped tight. Despite the heat of the fire and their exertions, she is cold right through herself, goosebumps rising on her naked flesh.

Hermione remembers, as her fingers clutch hard into Draco’s hair, being four and going to a riding stable with her mum and dad. The lady at the stable had told her to pick a pony, and Hermione’s four year old heart had swelled to bursting with joy. The pony had been named Fizz; a beautiful, placid bay, and Hermione had been crazed with excitement as the lady had led her about the ring on her new pony’s back. Then it had been time to go home, and Hermione had realised her beaming parents had not bought her beautiful, perfect Fizz, just an hour’s ride on her. She still remembers the utter brushing devastation as she clung to Fizz’s back and sobbed as her distressed father lifted her down and tried to explain.

In a way it is, similar to how she feels now, naked and clinging to Draco so tight her muscles are cramping, with tears burning behind her eyes. She had thought - stupidly, irrationally - that he was hers for a while longer at least, but he is not and oh god it hurts like a physical pain. Hermione had never thought about there being any sort of possible future for her and Draco until the possibility had been taken away from her, and now all she has been able to think about these past few days has been, _what if?_

What if Draco hadn’t been a Death Eater? What if he had agreed to go to Dumbledore and confess everything? Would they have been able to carve out some kind of future together? Would clandestine meetings in the Room have evolved into something more, something solid and certain? Could Hermione have ever told her friends? Would it have worked? Or would any relationship they attempted have sputtered and died at the end of the school year, or before? It doesn’t matter now – she’ll never find out, and it makes her want to weep at the unfairness of it all.

The embrace they are locked in suddenly feels hollow, and maybe Draco feels it too, because he eases his softening penis out of her slowly, a small trickle of fluids following, and Hermione represses a shudder. She feels used still, but not in a good way anymore. She feels sticky, cold, gross, and _empty_. Draco is not hers; he never was, and he never will be. She wants to be in her bed, hiding under the covers and crying like a little girl, because all this hurts too much – wanting to cling to him, pull him back down to kiss and shag some more – but what is the point? Hermione bites her lip and blinks back tears.

“Hey,” Draco says softly, soothingly, and his thumb runs along her cheek. Hermione lifts her eyes to Draco’s as he kneels between her thighs, and he is flushed in vivid colour and his chest rises and falls sharply still. His hair is sticking up madly, his features cast in regret, and his thumb swipes down over her kiss-reddened lips. “I love you,” he tells her gently, like an apology. Hermione looks at him a moment, unable to say it in reply, and her chest burns with the trapped feeling.

Then she rises up and twists, and flings herself bodily for their wands. The floor _whoofs_ the breath out of her, but her fingers snap around their wands, she pushes herself up on a wobbly, precarious knee and flicks her wand at him.

“ _Stupefy!_ ” she gets out as she wobbles and then falls back, and Draco’s face is a mask of anger, and he lurches at her, the stunning spell whizzing just past his neck. _Shit_ , she has time to think before his shoulder hits her chest hard and he crushes her onto the floor.

“– _Bitch_ –” she hears Draco snarl over and over as they struggle on the floor. She is trying to keep the wands out of his reach in one hand, and he is grabbing at her arm, her legs locked around his hips in a parody of what they had just been doing moments before, keeping him trapped. Hermione clenches her fist and slams it as hard as she can muster, into the side of his head and ear. She will be overcome with guilt later, she will cry and rage and hate herself later – when Draco has been saved from destroying lives that include his own.

He yelps, surprise and pain, and she catches a glimpse of angry red face and shocked eyes, and realises that Draco has underestimated what she is capable of. She would be smug if the situation was different and she hated him still, but it is not and she just feels sick. She kicks and knees at him, thrashes, and gets half out from under him, when he catches her across the face with a closed fist.

Hermione’s head snaps back and she sees stars, a wounded animal wail breaking from her throat, the pain flaring red and hot in the left side of her face. Shock roils through her and blood fills her mouth as Draco goes up over her on his knees, and seizes her hair, yanking painfully. She shrieks at the sharp stinging, and in mindless retaliation, adrenaline and fear spurring Hermione on, she knees him in the bollocks. Draco folds immediately with a strangled _oof_ , abandoning their struggle in favour of cradling himself and swearing up a blue streak.

“ _Petrificus Totalus,_ ” Hermione rushes with a thick tongue, blood dribbling down her chin – she thinks he knocked a tooth loose with that backhand – and Draco goes straight and stiff as a board and tips onto the floor, and her legs. Hermione spits out a gobbet of blood-tinged phlegm, gasps in a huge, shaking breath, and heaves her legs out from beneath Draco’s body, barely able to believe it is over so fast. Her ears are ringing and vision blurring from the smack across her face, and she feels so dizzy and ill that she thinks she might vomit. She does, a moment later, on all fours on the ground, choking and sobbing beside Draco’s rigid body.

Part of her gut-wrenching nausea is what she has just done to him, and what he did to her. Just moments before Hermione had felt like they had attained something close to perfection, and then… _this_. But she didn’t have a choice, she tells herself; she knows Draco, and he would never have just let her leave after the sex. Not without making sure she couldn’t speak a word about him. It had been him or her, and Hermione had been counting on him underestimating her. She had underestimated herself too – she had thought she would hesitate in hurting him. She hadn’t. She isn’t sure how that makes her feel about herself.

Adrenaline is still thrumming in her veins like fire as she dresses quickly and clumsily. She is sore between her legs and inside, and she wants to cry because her memory of what they did will always be tainted by what came after. She had been trying to say goodbye properly, but instead she feels like she has ruined something that should have been happy, and precious. Whenever Hermione remembers losing her virginity, she will remember this – crying as she dresses, her face a mass of pain, Draco locked still and hate-filled on the floor beside her.

Her hands shake as she manages to get Draco’s boxers on, avoiding looking at his face, because she doesn’t want to see the hate in his eyes. He must be furious beyond all reason, she knows, and the indignity of the fact that she is dressing him like a doll would only increase his rage.  The left side of her face is swelling now, and the skin feels hot and tight, and she can’t seem to pull in a proper breath. Despite that Hermione apologises over and over in a rattling, slurred whisper as she forces his boxers up his thighs and over his hips. She tries not to stare at his now flaccid penis, and think about how – such a short time ago – it had been thick and hard inside of her.

She tells Draco that this is for his own good, and she is desperately so, but she loves him and she can’t let him commit murder, can’t let him throw his life away like this. A low growl forces its way out of him, and Hermione finally meets his eyes, and knows exactly what he is thinking. _‘But you’ll throw my mother’s life away?’_ His eyes are glued to her, frantic and maddened with fury and desperation and despite the _petrificus,_ his fingers flex and scratch at the floor. Worried that he will break free, she conjures chains and binds him tightly enough that the irons indent slightly into his flesh. It is only for a little while, she tells herself – it won’t hurt him.

She releases the _petrificus totalus_ so that he can blink and swallow and shift a little again, and Draco lets out a roar as soon as the spell is lifted, straining against the chains, struggling like a madman. His mother’s life is at stake, she thinks – she would be the same. She listens to him a moment like it is her punishment as he spits words, rising and falling from a low, dangerous snarl to a scream. They bite into her; knives peeling back her skin.

“My mother – my _mother_ – _kill you_ – I loved you – fucking _bitch_ – _hate_ – fucking _murder_ you – do this to me? – _trusted_ – filthy _fucking_ Mudblood _bitch_ –”

She walks away when _‘mudblood’_ crosses his lips as though it is a trigger – a switch flipped in her head, and she is _done_. She has to get away before she falls apart, loses her nerve and lets him go, so that he can tear her apart in his anger. She pockets his wand calmly – the illusion of calmness taking every iota of her self-control, and helped by a growing numbness.

When she reaches the door she looks back, and concentrates hard, hand white-knuckled on the door. Their cosy sanctuary is replaced by the place where things are hidden, and Draco is a half-naked comma on the dusty floor. He is chained tightly, because _she_ won’t underestimate _him_ , and his skin is pale in the gloomy light, except for his face and neck, which are stained red from the force of his anger. He is rasping his fury now, voice ragged and hoarse but no less vicious for it, and Hermione wishes it didn’t have to be this way – she wishes it harder than she has ever wished for anything.

“I’m going to go tell the Headmaster now,” she tells him and he goes dead silent, his eyes burning into hers.

“Please, Hermione.” Draco drags the words out of him; it is as if he is tearing them free and creating bloodied holes inside him. “I love you. Please don’t do this.”

“I love you too,” Hermione gets out in a shaky breath, feeling shivery, her muscles as weak as water. “And that’s why I have to tell. I – I’m so sorry, Draco.”

He lies there still and quiet with tears slipping from his eyes, and Hermione thinks that maybe he understands a little bit. Maybe a part of him wants her to stop him, a small subconscious part that he tries to bury. Because there is no way the Draco that Hermione knows would have left his wand within her reach on a day like today, when he knew she would try to stop him. For a brief moment she wonders if things might be mended, in the end.

“Fuck your sorries,” Draco says then, and shuts his eyes, and Hermione nods slowly, chin trembling as the sobs jam up in her throat. She leaves him there, without a goodbye. They have already said goodbye.

* * *

 

**7 th June, 1997**

Hermione goes to Professor McGonagall, who is still in her office despite it being just after midnight, and says she needs to see the Headmaster _now_. The tremble in her voice and the state of her bruising face convince Professor McGonagall that the situation is serious. She fires questions at Hermione as they hurry towards Dumbledore’s office, and she is unable to answer any of them, really.

“Are you all right?” is the first question Professor McGonagall asks, with a shrill, brusque worry, and even that Hermione finds hard to answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” she answers dully, hand wrapped around Draco’s wand, shoved in her pocket.

 “Miss Granger, I think it very well _does_.”

Hermione isn’t sure what the Professor is thinking may have happened, but the older witch is taut with worry, and her eyes are sharp on Hermione. “No, Professor, it doesn’t. What matters is that I speak to Dumbledore before it’s too late.”

Professor McGonagall is taken back at Hermione’s blunt, almost rude urgency – so out of character for her – but that very rudeness seems to lend weight to Hermione’s urgency. The Gryffindor Head of House still questions Hermione, as if she can’t help herself, but seems to accept Hermione’s lack of answers. Her limbs are trembling and her heart is juddering so hard it feels like it will burst out of her chest when they reach Dumbledore’s office. Professor McGonagall speaks the password and the gargoyle grates aside, and then they are up the stairs and in front of Dumbledore’s desk.

“Minerva, Miss Granger. What brings you here in such a fluster, this evening?” Dumbledore inquires before he even looks up, and when he does his eyes are tired and seeded with cautious worry. He looks very worn and more ancient than ever to Hermione’s eyes, and he removes his withered hand from the desk and lays it on his lap, out of sight. “There has been an accident?” he asks calmly as he sees Hermione’s face, which throbs with a hot, hard pain.

“Miss Granger insisted on seeing you, Albus. She has not told me what has happened to cause...” Professor McGonagall breaks off, flapping her hand at Hermione’s face, her brisk tone carrying an undercurrent of frustrated worry. Dumbledore turned his gaze back to Hermione, and she shifts beneath it uncomfortably.

“Miss Granger?”

Her mind is filled with Draco; lying trussed on the floor of the Room, screaming and hissing bile and hatred at her. Pleading with her not to tell and sentence his mother to death. The way he had looked when they had...The flush of his face and the tightness of his fingers, the greedy, gasping sounds he had made. She isn’t ready for that to be goodbye, she cannot bear the thought of it never happening again, never seeing him with that dark, wanting glaze to his eyes that she is the cause of. She loves him. Hermione Granger loves Draco Malfoy. And that is why, even if it wasn’t too late, even if she could spin and Time-Turner and go back, she would still be standing here, in front of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, feeling sick and sore and so scared.

“Does this have anything to do with Draco Malfoy, Miss Granger?” Dumbledore asks, and she gulps and chokes on an inhale and her eyes fly away from his. _Legilimency_ , she thinks with sudden panic, because there are some things that are _private_ , like the memory of how Draco looked when orgasm overtook him.

“Sir?” Hoarse panic shapes her voice and she looks hard at a clinking gadget past Dumbledore’s shoulder instead of his eyes.

“One moment, Miss Granger,” Dumbledore says instead of clarifying, and dashes something off quickly on a bit of parchment, which he then appears to simply vanish. She waits impatiently until Dumbledore looks up again, eyes alert on her face. She still avoids his, looking at his beard instead.

“I see you have Draco Malfoy’s wand, in your pocket. I assume I am correct in that it is Mister Malfoy’s wand?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Hermione answers, shoulders sagging. She wonders if Dumbledore really spotted the butt of Draco’s wand and managed to recognise it, or whether he is covering up the use of _legilimency_. Her uninjured cheek flames nearly as hot as her hurt one at the thought of the Headmaster intruding on her mind right now.

“Hermione – Miss Granger, please explain. What in Merlin’s name is going on?” McGonagall’s voice cracks the air, and Dumbledore waves his good hand quellingly.

“Let Miss Granger have a moment to collect herself, Minerva. She will explain everything in her own time – there is no need for undue haste. And if this involves Mister Malfoy, perhaps Severus should be present, as his Head of House.”

Professor McGonagall subsides, sending her patronus for Professor Snape, while Hermione shrinks further. She doesn’t want to tell Snape any of this, especially not while she is still sticky and sore from sex, with the mark of Draco’s fist across her face. She is vulnerable and raw, and Snape’s sneering face will only make her feel worse. She settles in a chair in front of Dumbledore’s desk at his invitation, and McGonagall calls a house elf to bring hot, sweet tea, which Hermione sips at without protest. It helps steady her a little, although she still feels as though her world has come crashing down around her ears.

When Professor Snape arrives, his usual contemptuous expression firmly in place, Dumbledore urges Hermione to tell them everything. With her eyes on her hands clutched around the tea cup, Hermione obediently tells them everything. Or nearly everything; Draco’s penchant for mild cross-dressing, and their romantic feelings, Hermione leaves out, using sympathy and a growing friendship as the only reason she kept Draco’s secret as long as she did. Mostly she just focuses on the pertinent facts – Draco being forced to join the Death Eaters, kill Dumbledore, and let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, whether his mother can be saved, and that it will be happening soon.

Hermione is rather certain the three adults guess at the romantic feelings, however. Snape _humphs_ at her stammering, vague reasons as to why she kept the secret as if she is the most transparent person in the world, McGonagall gives Hermione a meaningful and startlingly sympathetic pat, and she is sure Dumbledore knew about her and Draco since the moment he looked into her eyes. This suspicion is solidified further when, at the sudden appearance of a slip of parchment on his desk, Dumbledore informs them that Draco has already been collected from the Room, sedated, and is currently in the Hospital Wing. He could only have done that earlier, when he scribbled on the bit of parchment and appeared to vanish it. She hates that the Headmaster has seen into her mind, even if it does mean Draco has already been rescued from his chains.

She shoves her feelings of violation aside and waits quietly, watching the adults carefully, wanting to know what will happen next. Hermione does not expect Dumbledore will allow it, but she hopes to be privy to their plans.

“Minerva, please escort Miss Granger to the hospital wing to have Poppy see to her injury,” Dumbledore says after a long moment of thought, and he looks immeasurably tired now, from what she can see of his face behind the beard. It worries her. “Severus, if you would disable the cabinet before you return to your rooms?”

Snape nods shortly, his sallow face unreadable, and Professor McGonagall waves Hermione to her feet.

“What – what will happen to…to Draco now, Headmaster?” She asks nervously, hands twining together as she stands to go.

“It will be taken care of, Miss Granger. Mister Malfoy shall be safe, thanks to your bringing this matter to my attention. I should like to give you points for your actions tonight –” Hermione nearly chokes at that, thinking of flushed skin and reddened lips, before she remembers all the bad and her stomach sinks like a stone. “– but I believe it would be best for everyone if what has eventuated tonight is kept secret, even from those closest to you.”

“Of course.” There is so much more Hermione would like to know – would like to ask – but she senses she would get no answers from Dumbledore tonight. “Thank you, Headmaster.” Snape remains in the room, and she can hear him begin to speak in a harsh whisper before she and Professor McGonagall leave earshot. She cannot make out the words, but Snape sounds angry, worried, and Dumbledore’s voice is soothing and calm. She wishes she knew _what_ they were saying, but then she and Professor McGonagall are down the stairs, and the gargoyle grates back into place with a thunk.

* * *

 

**11 th June, 1997**

Narcissa Malfoy’s body was left at the gates of Hogwarts this morning, or so Hermione hears by way of the rampant rumour mill amongst the students. _Dead without a mark on her_ , she hears Terry Boot whispering to a fellow Housemate in a corridor, _except that her head was two metres from the rest of her_. Hermione feels as though she has been struck and sent reeling, and she prays that Draco did not see his mother like that. She feels sick, sick _sick_ because the blame for Narcissa’s death can be laid at least partially on Hermione’s shoulders, and she feels like a murderer. She abandons her steady stride towards Ancient Runes and ducks into a nearby alcove, behind a tapestry.

A couple of fifth years are already occupying it, snogging, and they stare at her in disbelief and disgust as she comes barging in, disregarding their obvious wish for privacy.

“What the –” the boy gets out, sneering at her, and Hermione growls under her breath, in no mood.

“Five points from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff!” she snaps at the pair of them. “Now get on to your classes, now, before I take another five points!” She sounds frighteningly like a shrill Snape, and a trembly kind of hysteria has taken her over as the students scuttle away looking resentful and as if she may be mad. She dumps her bag to the ground and whips out the Map, scanning it for Draco’s name. She finds it, in the hospital wing, utterly still for the three minutes she stares at it with barely a blink, trying to calm her ragged nerves and sickened stomach. It is the stillness that scares her and finally sets her into momentum again; what if he _did_ something after hearing about his mother? What if he did something _bad?_

Hermione heads at a jog to the hospital wing, tamping down on the fear that rises up in her. What if he’s hurt himself? What if he’s fine, but he hates her? What if, what if…they swim through her mind until she feels dizzied and more nauseous than before. The fact that she has not seen him since the night she left him in chains in the Room only adds to her terror. There is no reason for him to have any feelings towards her bar hate, and yet here she is. Standing in the doorway to the infirmary and staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Draco sits by a bedside, his hands resting on the chair arms, staring straight ahead of him as though he is a statue. There is a body on the bed, but it is covered by a pristine white sheet, and Hermione suddenly loses all her nerve – she wants to turn and run and flee, and not have to face Draco, with that empty, blank look on his face that makes her spine creep. But she is a Gryffindor, and this is her fault, and she _loves him_ , may Merlin damn her for a brainless idiot. She can’t just walk away like a coward; she has to face the consequences of her choices. She can either comfort him, or offer him an outlet for his grief and anger, and either way it should help him, she hopes.

Hermione makes her feet move her forward, and her shoe scuffs on the floor and Draco’s head snaps to her. The empty, blank look – like the door is open but nobody’s home – disappears, to be replaced by a mask of anger that transforms him into someone else entirely. He shoves himself to his feet jerkily, like he’s a malfunctioning robot, and stalks several steps toward Hermione. “ _You_ ,” he spits, like she is scum not worth scraping off his shoes, and his eyes are bloodshot and face blotchy from crying.

“I heard…” She all of a sudden doubts the wisdom of coming here, as he keeps stalking towards her furiously, and she scans the room for the reassurance of other people, and finds the place empty but for them. “I’m so sorry, Draco. I’m so, so sorry. I never – I didn’t – I –”

He jerks to a halt, close enough that his breath is hot on her face as he looms over her, and a vein throbs at his temple. He looks at her like she is a stranger. Hermione swallows and tries again. “I couldn’t let you do that to your–”

“You should have!” he roared suddenly and Hermione flinched back, cringed into herself. “You had no fucking _right!_ ” Draco’s face is boiling red with the force of his rage and his voice deafens her. “It’s _your fault_ she’s dead! _Your fucking fault you mudblood bitch!_ I _hate_ you!” He is right up in her face now, and she slides back a step, something small and warm in her chest being battered to nothing at his words, being bruised and broken and crumpled. A sob shudders from her lips, and tears fill up her eyes and begin to spill over.

“ _Bitch!_ ” His hand shoots up and slams into her shoulder, and Hermione chokes on an inhale as shock seizes her – _he pushed me, he pushed me_ – and she stumbles back a step. “Don’t you dare cry! You haven’t got the right! My mother is _dead_ –” His voice cracks and breaks on _dead_ , and Hermione clamps her lips together hard and tries to stop her tears.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers in a tiny, crushed little voice, her eyes focused on the left side of his chest as it rises and falls raggedly with his breath, afraid to meet his eyes for too many reasons. “I didn’t think – I shouldn’t have some up here…I’ll go. I’m sorry.”

Hermione spins and walks away unsteadily, tears making her vision waver and double. Draco doesn’t stop her, just breathes hard and heavy behind her, as if he is held together by a thread that is swiftly unravelling. She hears a low choked sob before she pulls the infirmary door shut behind her, and then nothing. There is nothing.

Several days later she will stand and stare at Dumbledore’s body, and again she feel nothing. Like it was all for nothing. Draco, Narcissa, Snape, Dumbledore…everything Hermione did was for nothing. She will to remind herself she saved Draco from committing murder, but she will have heard on the rumour mill that he has been deep in the bottle since his mother’s death, lashing out at everyone and everything, barely coherent. She will wonder if she even managed to save him, or whether all she has done is break him in a different way.

* * *

 

 


	7. Part Seven

۞ **Part Seven** ۞

**Monday 28 th July, 1997**

Harry tells Hermione that Professor McGonagall told him about Malfoy, and asked him to inform Hermione that Malfoy was hidden safely with the Order. Her reaction to the news – bursting into a flood of relieved, wounded sobs – prompts Harry and Ron to question her until she gives up the entirety of the truth – save the cross-dressing – and the next few days are filled with awkward silences, and worried looks from the boys when they think she doesn’t notice. It is as though they believe loving Malfoy must be an indicator of insanity. Hermione thinks that they might be right.

She can’t appear to stop it though; she tries to starve the feelings she has for Draco, and push them away, but it does nothing. She still loves him. She thinks the words at night, lying in a bed across the room from Ginny’s – _I love Draco_ – and even if nothing else in her life seems to make any sense, somehow those words _do_. Everything in her life has gone backwards and upside-down, with no consistency to them, and Hermione feels very lost. How she feels for Draco, though – love, hurt, anger, guilt – those things are constant, even if they are mad. Hermione clings to consistency, holds it to her chest like a precious creature, and if Harry and Ron don’t understand, well…she doesn’t expect them to.

* * *

 

**Sunday 7 th September, 1997**

Harry receives a rare letter from Ginny by owl, and after dinner he shows it to Hermione, pointing to a place in the letter without explanation. She takes the letter curiously and reads aloud from where Harry’s grubby finger points.

“And even Malfoy…is fighting now, which is a sign of how grim things must be.” Her voice trails off to a whisper when she reaches his name, emotions overwhelming her in a tangle and her hand comes up to fist in her shirt over her heart. It is swollen and thudding in her chest, and tears burn behind her eyes. Hermione reads the one line over again, choking down her tears, her fingers indenting the parchment, she grips it so tightly. The tent is silent, and thick with emotion. Ron watches Hermione’s reaction intently from his seat opposite her at the table, his expression shuttered, and Harry looks anywhere but at her as she tries to compose herself.

That she still loves Draco is a great gulf cutting between the three of them, because it is Draco Malfoy, and Harry and Ron can’t even begin to understand that. But they reach and struggle and try to close the gap anyway, because that is what you do when you love someone like the three of them do each other. Ron does not make any disparaging comments about Draco, just makes Hermione a hot cup of cocoa and squeezes her shoulder, and Harry tells her she can keep the letter if she likes, his green eyes soft with sympathy. And Hermione thanks Ron for the cocoa, makes a magical copy of the letter for herself, and goes to her bed to read the line until her vision blurs, so that she doesn’t inflict her quiet tears on the boys.

He is fighting on their side.

Draco is fighting the same side as her, and that has to mean something. He may still hate her, but Hermione knows for the first time – really knows – that she made the right choice. Because if she hadn’t betrayed him then he would be fighting on the other side now, and one day she would have faced him across a battlefield, and his future would have been Azkaban or death. And now he has a present and one day a future that can be something worthwhile, something happy even, one day, maybe. She cries until her head hurts, and she isn’t quite sure why, but she thinks it is relief, and happiness, and a deep, aching grief. She may have saved Draco and that is the most important thing, but she couldn’t save his mother, or Dumbledore, or whatever it was she and Draco had, and it hurts.

* * *

 

**Thursday 20 th November, 1997**

In that kind, cautious sort of way he has, Harry asks Hermione if she thinks she’ll ever get over Draco. It is unusual for them to talk about feelings, especially the ones she has for Draco, but with Ron gone the tent is very silent, and they are very alone. They sit close together, in the evenings, and he talks about Ginny, his fear that he will fail, and how much he wants it all to end. Hermione lifts a shoulder in a shrug as she picks at a ragged edge on her thumb nail.

“I don’t know,” she tells the bespectacled boy on the narrow bed beside her. “I suppose so, eventually.” It is only half a lie. Hermione knows that in the end everything passes eventually, even the things you want to cling to.

Except she’s never thought about getting over Draco because she has never thought past the war, and Draco – and Hermione’s feelings for him – are entwined inextricably with her concept of the war. She keeps on moving, keeps going day after day, but in the past few months she has never once thought past the final confrontation they are building towards; she has been focused totally on the present. There is the war, there is the point where it ends, and then there is nothing.

For the first time in her life, Hermione can’t plot out her future, not even in broad, vague strokes. Her world consists of the search for Horcruxes, looking after Harry, missing Ron like a hole in her heart, and lying in bed at night unable to sleep, so afraid of failure and pain and death that the fear soaks into her bones like a winter chill. Hermione thinks of Draco at those times when she is huddled under her blankets with her heart beating leaden in her chest, and remembers the Room. It is like an escape.

* * *

 

**Friday 26 th December, 1997**

“I saw Malfoy,” Ron says suddenly, and Hermione’s head snaps toward him, sitting at the end of the table, his glass of firewhiskey paused halfway to his mouth as he watches her closely. His blue eyes are bright, like pieces of the sky, and Hermione exhales with sharp, frightened shock. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out, because she is afraid to even ask if Ron spoke to him, afraid to know what Draco might have said about her, all filled with blame for his mother’s death. She is perhaps more afraid that he will not have mentioned her at all, and she has broken out in a cold sweat, a small ‘oh’ escaping her open mouth.

“Yeah. He was at Grimmauld. The Order’s re-secured it,” Ron tells her after taking a measured sip of his firewhiskey. “The Death Eaters know about it, even if they can’t get in, so it’s not perfectly safe of course – mostly used as a rendezvous location, temporary infirmary, place to catch a quick kip. That sort of thing. The Order doesn’t keep any sensitive information there.”

He is testing and tormenting her, Hermione realises, waiting for her to outright ask about Draco before he says anything. They stare at each from opposite ends of the table for 33 unblinking seconds before Hermione breaks.

“Ronald Weasley if you don’t tell me what it is you know about Draco that you’re hinting at, I will smother you to death with my hair!” Her voice cracks and shrills, and she jabs a finger at him warningly, because she doesn’t have the patience. Ron grins uneasily at that threat, and possibly at the blatant expression of Hermione’s feelings towards Draco, which neither he nor Harry are comfortable with seeing yet.

“He was in the kitchen having a post-mission drink with a few Aurors when Terry Boot took me there to get away from the Snatchers,” Ron begins, his finger running round the rim of his glass. “I joined them for a drink, and Malfoy kept staring at me, like he was trying to pry open my head and look into my brain.” Ron sniffs and tips his glass, stares into it with a wrinkle to his nose as he remembers. “It was bloody weird.”

Hermione tamps down on her itching impatience with an effort, because Ron doesn’t respond to exhortations to hurry up; if anything, it makes him seem to take longer, hogging the limelight.

“It took about an hour and we were both pretty pissed by then, but finally Malfoy comes out and says, ‘Where are your little Gryffindor friends, Weasel? Finally gained some sense and dropped your dead weight?’” Ron frowns and Hermione cringes. Ron draws a deep breath and runs a finger over the bruise that stains his jaw, and Hermione thinks she knows who gave it to him, and why his own knuckles are bruised.

“Oh Ron...” she sighs, both sympathetic over Draco’s nastiness to Ron and tangled in her emotions because she has an idea how the rest of his story will unfold. Draco had hit a very sore spot of Ron’s, and she can’t imagine Ron controlled his temper with any success, and to be honest, she can’t blame Ron if he took a swing at Draco.

“In my defence I was pretty drunk,” Ron continues, and that does not bode well. “I don’t know why I did it, Hermione; it just came out, honest.” His blue stare is nervous and apologetic, and Hermione groans.

“Merlin, Ron, what did you do?”

“Well, Malfoy said that thing about dead weight, and I looked him in the eye, and said, ‘she’s dead, you bastard.’” Ron’s lips twitch up at the corners despite his best efforts to stay straight-faced, and he ducks his gaze down to stare into the depths of his glass, which fails to hide his smirk.

“Jesus, Ron! You told him I was _dead_?” Hermione feels hysteria wash up over her, because how on earth could Ron do that to Draco? What had possessed him to say _that_ of all things? She smacks her hand over her face and peeks out between her fingers, flushing and horrified, and holding in a laugh she is desperately ashamed of.

Ron grins sheepishly and shrugs. “It just came out, I swear.”

The bubbles of nervous laughter are fizzing up in her, and Merlin it feels good to laugh, nervous or not. But Ron is speaking again and she focuses on his voice, bottling up her hysteria.

“He turned so pale I thought he was going to bloody well keel over.” Her stifled laughter dies and Hermione stares hard at Ron, who is shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “And then it all turned to shit. The way he reacted...Merlin’s balls, Hermione, it was intense. I didn’t think...”

“You _never_ think, Ron.” Hermione’s voice shakes and her fingers dig into her palms, because it suddenly isn’t funny anymore, not in the slightest, because she imagines being told Draco is dead and knows it would be like a gut punch that drove her to her knees.

“He threw his beer bottle at the wall, and I swear to Merlin he looked like he was going to _cry_. Like I’d just smacked him in the face with a bit of wood. Like he’d just…lost everything that ever meant anything.” Ron says it fast and factually, obviously hugely uncomfortable with the memory of Draco’s emotions, and swills down half his firewhiskey before shooting Hermione an apologetic glance. “I thought he’d know I was just screwing with him. Honestly.”

Hermione’s heart is pounding, because if Draco really hated her then she is sure he would have been glad she was dead, or been indifferent at best. She doesn’t know what the reaction Ron received means, but it makes her stomach flip and clench and her palms feel all sweaty. Something that feels a little like hope unfurls slightly in her chest, even though maybe it shouldn’t.

“And when did you get _that?_ ” Hermione asks pointedly, gesturing at the bruise on his face beneath patchy ginger scruff. Ron looks abashed and slides his glass back and forth over the table between his index fingers.

“I’ll get to it. Malfoy pulled out his wand, and for a second I thought he was going to curse me. Before I could tell him I was just messing with him, he said, ‘who was it? Who. the. fuck. was it?’” Ron mimics Draco’s low, dangerous tone as best he can, and delicious shivers crawl down Hermione’s spine at the thought of him being so angry over her. “I tried to interrupt, but Malfoy wasn’t listening. He got right up in my face and said, ‘tell me who it was, Weasley, I’ll fucking kill them.’ And I said, ‘fucking hell, she’s not dead, Malfoy. I was just –’ ...and that was when he hauled off and gave me this. It took two Aurors to drag him off me in the end, he was that bloody furious.”

Ron grins sheepishly at Hermione, blue eyes hopeful on Hermione’s face. “Please don’t kill me, ‘Mione.”

She manages to refrain from killing him, but she scolds him in a shrill voice for a good ten minutes for saying something like that, while inwardly feeling ridiculously elated. It is as though she is dying of thirst, and catches sight of a lake on the horizon; it may not be trickling down her throat right this moment, but it is _there_. Unless, of course, it is a mirage, she adds cynically. Later that night when Hermione goes to bed, her overactive imagination pictures the scene Ron had described over and over, until she feels like she had actually been there, watching.

It is stupid that something so small can make her so happy, but every time she sees the bruise on Ron’s face she thinks, _Draco cares_ – and whatever keeps a person going and sane through this lengthy ordeal of horcrux-searching is worth holding onto. Even if it is something distant on the horizon, that may be a mirage. So she holds on.

She catches herself looking at Ron’s jaw multiple times a day, until he swears he’s going to grow a beard to stop her weird perving, which makes her blush and fiercely deny that she has been staring at all. When the bruise finally fades, Harry offers to give Ron another in the same place for Hermione to keep fixating on. Ron protests dramatically, Hermione laughs and shakes her head and says it wouldn’t be the same, and Harry just grins at the fact that Hermione is smiling and laughing. Hermione thinks it is odd, but the boys may finally be getting used to the fact that she loves Draco Malfoy; they are slowly closing the gulf her feelings caused between the three of them, with silliness and teasing, cups of cocoa and awkward hugs.

It’s nice.

* * *

 

**Friday 14 th February, 1998**

When they arrive at Grimmauld, Hermione hugs everyone so tightly that their bones creak, an enormous pressure in her chest breaking and leaving her able to breathe more easily than she has in weeks. The upstairs bedroom feels crowded with people, bright and warm and loud.

Tonks looks exhausted but happy, and Lupin lets go of his worry long enough to play the proud father. Teddy is tiny at two days old and when Hermione holds him carefully in her arms she prays that he will never have to know war – that this will all be long done before he is old enough to remember it. Because no child should have to grow up with the heavy weight of uncertainty and fear that the ones they love will never come home. They should not have to be brave, or put their lives on the line, or be afraid of evil suffocating all that is good in the world. She thinks that perhaps she is a little bitter about what she feels she must do.

Teddy blinks up at her, and Lupin, Tonks, Bill, Ginny, Harry, and Ron are gathered around, and for the first time in too long Hermione is surrounded by those she loves, and it is too much. Hermione hands Teddy to Harry – who holds his godchild like he is a bomb, smiling nervously down at him – and then slips away, brushing tears from her eyes. Her breath is caught in her throat and her eyes sting, and she doesn’t want them to see her fall apart.

She doesn’t want to distract them with her inability to keep it together, when they have so little time; only a few hours. They can’t stay long, none of them, because while Grimmauld has been secured once more, it’s not secured well enough for Lupin’s liking when his wife and newborn child are at risk. Besides, Harry, Ron, and Hermione have a job to return to.

She pads through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea; just the thing to soothe her nerves. She isn’t surprised to see someone else in the kitchen as Ron says Grimmauld has become a thoroughfare for the Order, but she isn’t expecting to see _him_. Her feet root to the floor just inside the doorway as she stares at white-blonde hair and long fingers wrapped around a mug, from which steam rises in wisps and curls. He looks half-dead, slumped in a chair in a knitted jersey that has seen better days; holey and marked with dirt and old blood.

His eyes lift to her when she makes a small, inarticulate sound and clutches at the doorframe to steady herself, and the grey of them darkens with something like hate, and other things that she cannot decipher. They just stare, for a moment that seems to stretch on forever. His left cheekbone is marred by a thin, fresh scar, his bottom lip is swollen and bruised around, and Hermione aches with the need to touch him. Her throat is clogged and the words won’t come; blocked up, and she thinks his name fiercely over and over. Draco.

His mouth flattens out and her gaze flies to his hands when he shoves the mug away from him and it grates on the wood of the table. His right knuckles are blackened and swollen. He stands with sharp grace and rounds the table, moves toward her with a faint limp that makes his boots noisy on the floorboards. Her heart is thundering and for a mad moment she thinks – hopes, prays – that he will grab her and kiss her hard and angry up against the wall. Instead he shoulders his way quickly past her, their arms bumping together inadvertently as she stands frozen, half-blocking the doorway.

She smells wood smoke and old sweat and the metallic scent of blood, feels the radiant heat of his body, hears his harsh intake of breath as his arm rubs hard against hers. Her stomach turns with excitement and misery, and then he is past her, limping down the narrow hallway to the front door. She turns, calling his name hoarsely.

“Draco!”

His boots hesitate long enough for her to call him again, pleading now, but he ignores her. Tall and lean, battered and limping in Muggle jeans and what looks like a Molly Weasley original, Draco Malfoy walks away from her. She yells his name once more, angry this time, but the only answer she gets is the front door banging shut behind him.

Hermione falls back against the doorframe, dizzy and sick, cheeks flushed. His scent lingers in the air around her and she breathes in deeply through her nose, her fists clenching so tight at her sides that her short nails bite through the skin of her palms. She doesn’t notice, eyes shut and tears glinting on her lashes.

She feels like some kind of weird pervert when she sits in the chair he had sat in and drinks what is left of his hot cup of tea, but she is past caring. Besides, it would be silly to let the tea go to waste, and his chair is still warm and she feels so _cold_.

She buries her head in her arms and cries quietly for a while, and when Harry and Ron come back downstairs they find her sitting there with eyes that are reddened and too bright, and a smile that is pasted on. They don’t know what to say so they don’t say anything at all, and the hot crush of their hugs help warm her a little.

* * *

 

**Friday 28 th March, 1998**

She wakes from nightmares to the dizzying haze of pain potions. Her eyes feel heavy and sticky and her throat is dry, and for a moment she can’t remember where she is. She is safe, she thinks as she blinks blearily up at a low, white ceiling. She is safe at Shell Cottage. Her body is sewn through with a deep ache from the Cruciatus despite the pain potions, and there is a faint stinging in her left arm too. She had been dreaming of that. Only in her nightmare Bellatrix had been scrawling the word over every inch of her skin. It is over, she tells herself. She was very brave, and now it is over, and she is still alive. It takes her a moment to convince herself of that, and a moment longer for her heart to stop racing with fear.

Hermione looks to the bedside table for water and finds it there; a large glass pitcher coated with condensation, and a cup beside it. And through the warp of the pitcher and the condensation blurring him, she sees a platinum head and long limbs. Draco is slumped down, cramped in a small chair wedged in the corner, fast asleep with his head lolling in what looks like a very uncomfortable position against the wall. His legs are stretched out in front of him, his boots coated in dried mud, and his hair is sticking up in some places, and flattened in others.

Hermione wonders for a moment how strong the pain potions Fleur had poured down her throat last night really were, to make her hallucinate. But when she achingly shuffles herself up a bit against the pile of pillows to get a better look at him, Draco’s head snaps up. His boots scuffle on the floor as he propels himself to his feet and his wand is out and ready before he sees her there.

“Shell Cottage,” he rasps as if reminding himself, and slips his wand away, rubs a hand over his eyes and the faint smattering of pale stubble at his jaw.

“Hermione,” he says next, and his attention snaps to her, propped up in bed and staring at him with wide eyes. He is not a dream; Draco is really here, and Hermione’s pain potion muddled mind races, trying to work out why he is here. The last time she saw him was at Grimmauld and he had walked away without even acknowledging her, and now he is sitting at her bedside.

“Dra...co?” Her throat is deathly dry, and her voice breaks halfway through his name and her cheeks go hot. He clenches his jaw and steps forward to pour her half a glass of water from the pitcher. His hands are ingrained with dirt, and when he hands her the glass their fingers knock together. He thins his lips and stands with his hands thrust in his pockets, watching her intently as she sips at the water. It is heavenly on her poor parched throat, but the way he just stands there silently, watching, makes her almost angry. She can accept him hating her for his mother’s death, but not this guessing game. She is too tired and confused to try to figure out what he wants, or how he feels.

“What are you doing here?” she asks him, clutching the glass in her hands, and he frowns and his eyes flick away from hers.

“I heard that my father and Aunt Bellatrix captured you. T-tortured...”

“Tortured me? Yes.” Her tone is brusque and tight now – almost angry – because remembering _hurts_ , but her gaze slides over every bit of Draco, drinking him in as greedily as she had the icy water. She is still half angry at him, though, despite the relief that floods through her at seeing him; he doesn’t have the right to ignore her for months and then come here and act like he cares. “But why are _you_ here?” It comes out sounding like an accusation, and hangs in the air between them, filling up the room. He is silent for a long moment, just staring at her hard-faced, the only sign of emotion a twitch to his left eye that seems to prompt his scowl as he blinks several times hard.

“Well?” It comes out sounding angrier than Hermione means it to again, and she scolds herself inside her head. Nothing comes out right when _he_ is around. Draco rasps a defeated sigh and his scowl deepens.

“I had to know if you were all right.” The words drag out of him angrily and he half turns away from her, his hands flexing and balling up.

“Why?” she asks him croakily, the question just bursting out of her without even thinking about how wise it was, because she _needs_ to know if he cares or not, or whether perhaps, she should just try to go back to hating him like she did so long ago. And fail miserably, most likely, because even now with that horrid glower on his face, Draco is beautiful to her. He stares at her unblinkingly, and she is a frenzy of waiting and not knowing, every second like an eternity.

“Because –” He breaks off suddenly and his head cocks to the side, gaze sliding to the door, blond hair falling in a dirty sheaf over his forehead. Hermione frowns, puzzled, and then she hears footsteps on the stairs. Frustration builds like a ball in her chest, because she knows what is going to happen.

“Draco – why?” she pushes urgently, and his gaze slips back to her, and his tired eyes are dull and sunken as he lifts a shoulder in response. “I don’t know.”

“Draco…” He knows why – he just won’t bloody admit it, and they are running out of time, footsteps on the floorboards of the narrow hallway now, and growing nearing. “Please.” She opens her eyes very wide and tries to look as exhausted and wounded as possible. Draco sees right through her act, she knows it, and the corner of his mouth curves into a smile that makes her heart thunder and her stomach squeeze and flip. His hand lifts toward her cheek, hovers in indecision while Hermione holds her breath, and then his hand clenches into a fist, he pulls it back to his side like lightning as the door scrapes open.

“I have to go,” he mutters as Ron barges into the room and fills it up with red hair and raucous life. “Be safe.” Draco’s eyes linger on her for a moment, as if he is taking a photograph of her inside his head, and then he stalks away, side-stepping Ron neatly and clicking the door quietly shut behind him.

It isn’t until Hermione can’t hear his booted footsteps anymore that she turns her gaze on Ron and _glares_.

“You just come barging in here!” she shrieks furiously, as Ron blinks in surprise at her, utterly confused and edging toward the door as her voice rises even further. She barrels on, her pitch and volume rising to what Harry and Ron would call banshee levels. “He was talking to me, for the first time in bloody _months_ , and you come _shoving_ in –”

* * *

 

**Friday 2 nd May, 1998**

Battle is madness.

It is noise; the screams of the hurt and dying, the sobs of the survivors who find their loved ones dead, the explosions that gouge at the castle, the thunder of giants’ feet, the constant crack of battle magic, and the rasping sound of Hermione’s gasps in her own ears. Battle is vivid enough to burn into Hermione’s retinas; the coloured lights of curses that streak the night, the crackling orange of fire, the pallid, soot-smeared skin of the fighters, and the dark crimson blood that is everywhere she turns her frightened eyes – including spatters and sweeps that arc over her own skin and filthy clothes.

It is chaos, terror, panic, and pain, and it overwhelms Hermione’s senses. She has taken a slashing curse to her leg, her jeans from the knee down soaked with her blood, her left arm and shoulder feel like one giant bruise from a repulso that slammed her into a stone wall, and her chest hurts from the smoke and ash that fill the air. The enemy are everywhere, swarming the castle, and Hermione is alone in the frenzy, fighting her way through the corridors with desperation and anger the only things keeping her upright. Harry has disappeared in the thick of the madness, and Hermione left Ron sobbing over Fred not two minutes ago, and she feels naked without them at her side.

There is no time to think about it though – she is focused on trying to get out to the courtyard where the main of the fighting is. Her bruised left arm is pressed over her mouth to try to filter the air and it tastes metallic on her parted lips - the sleeve is soaked in the blood of an Auror who died while Hermione tried and failed to stop the pump of blood from his slit throat. He is only one of many she has seen killed tonight, and she feels numb and dead to it all, unable to comprehend it.

She lurches around a corner and slips in a pool of blood, feet skidding and going out from under her, panic rushing up like fire. A werewolf in his human form, hunched over a young girl, tearing her still body to shreds with blunt teeth. Hermione gives a strangled, alien cry of horror and shoves herself back from the werewolf and his prey with her feet, bum sliding on the blood-slick ground.

The werewolf raises his head – he looks more animal than man, a strip of the girl’s flesh clutched in his teeth. Hermione flinches and slashes her wand, and the werewolf goes flying back to hit a wall hard enough that Hermione hears the deadly crunch of his spine. He falls like a puppet with his strings cut, and she spares him no more thought, crawling on all fours to the girl’s side.

It is Katie Bell who lies in a pool of her own blood, her face ashen and her throat torn out. Hermione scrambles back and retches as her stomach roils and rebels, painful spasms racking her abdomen. There is nothing to vomit but bile that burns up her throat and nose, and Hermione chokes on it and spits it out. A curse flies over her shoulder as she struggles to her feet, and she whirls and sends a stunner flying on instinct. It misses the black-robed Death Eater at the end of the hall, and she flings up a shield as the Death Eater sends a sickly yellow-green bolt of light whizzing at her.

They trade curses for a moment, Hermione’s heart thundering in her chest, her muscles trembling at the effort of duelling with advanced battle magic, terror in the back of her mind. Survival has taken over the forefront - the animal instinct to stay alive – and the brief, frenetic duel ends with a _sectumsempra_ torn from Hermione’s lips. She spins and runs, feeling sick to her stomach – this is the fourth time she has killed a person tonight, and it has gotten no easier. They may be evil, but they are still people, and Hermione feels like a murderer.

She passes the exhausted, grim-set faces of people she knows as she makes for the courtyard. Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott are working as a team – Hannah levitating the wounded to safety while Susan tries to protect her. Hermione locks eyes with Hannah as she lopes past them, and they exchange a look that buoys Hermione up slightly. Camaraderie, courage, an acknowledgement of the fear they are both filled with – it passes between them and then Hermione is forcing herself to keep going.

Professor Flitwick is leading a charge at an entrenched cluster of Death Eaters, with students fighting close behind him. She falls in with them beside Dean and Seamus, who flash her tight grins filled with both fear, and relief at seeing another friendly face. In a flurry of fighting, they manage to neutralise the small cluster of Death Eaters; Hermione fights with Dean and Seamus, and it is a blur of chaos that etches her bones with terror.

It’s hard to see by the light of distant fires and bright streaks of spells, and she is terrified of hurting someone on her side, or not seeing a Death Eater loom out of the madness that surrounds them all. But when the last Death Eater falls to Flitwick’s wand work, she is still alive, and no one on their side has been killed, although Dean has taken a _crucio_ and is still trembling on the ground uncontrollably. Seamus and Hermione cover Dean as he takes a moment to recover, and they exchange quick updates on who is dead and who lives still in half-drowned yells through the noise.

“–saw Nev– fighting – snake –vati and Padma – Great Ha– Malf– courtyard – woun– bloody maniac –” Seamus shouts, and Hermione’s heart shudders – did he say Malfoy? Wounded?

She throws up a shimmering shield that should hold a moment, and stares at Seamus blankly with her chest tight as hell. “What?” she shouts, and Seamus shakes his head and shrugs, not knowing what she wants. “Malfoy? Where did – see him?” A string of small explosions half-smothers her words, but Seamus gets the gist.

“Yeah!” He bellows, before pausing to fire a hex at a woman ragged and animalistic enough that she could only be a werewolf. She howls shrilly and goes tumbling over with her momentum as Seamus’ severing curse cuts through both legs above the knee. He makes a sick gurgling sound that Hermione echoes, and then keeps yelling over at her. “Malfoy’s in – courtya– wand arm – but still fight – total maniac, I said –”

Wand arm what? Broken? Severed? Hermione chokes down on the bile that burbles in her throat at the thought, and prays frantically that Draco will be okay. She near jitters from foot to foot despite her wounded leg, waiting impatiently until Dean is finally steady enough on his feet to fight again, a few long moments later.

“I’m heading for the courtyard, if you see Ron or Harry. Be safe,” she yells at them both, and then pushes off from behind the pillar they have been taking cover behind, blocks a curse, and forces her legs to propel her onward in a hunched over run that makes every muscle in her body stretch and hurt. Seamus yells something after her that sounds like ‘good luck’, and Hermione thinks that she will need it.

She hunch-limp-runs her way through the castle, keeping out of the battles raging in the corridors, her mind fixed on getting to Draco. Her lungs burn, her right jeans leg is heavy with her own blood and the leg itself feels clumsy and half-numbed, and panic shrills and thrills through her brain madly. A heap of rubble half blocks the corridor she skids into, and she grips her wand between her teeth as she attacks the pile, scrambling over it like a monkey. She slips and falls on precarious bits of masonry, banging up her already bruised and aching body, and her gasps for air are more sobs of pain and urgency than anything.

A fierce duel lights the corridor ahead of her in deadly rainbow bolts, and none of the people involved are Draco, and the Aurors seem to be winning. Hermione dithers for a moment over whether to help or not, but when one of the Death Eaters falls, she swears to herself and makes for a broken window, that opens onto the courtyard. It is lit in flame and curses so thick they strobe in the night, blinding her for a moment. She obliterates the remaining jagged shards of glass and hauls herself up with a grunt, falling out the other side.

Her hands fling out to catch her and pain erupts in the palm of her wand hand, a choked scream gurgling up her throat. A narrow piece of glass is thrust right through the meat of her hand, and Hermione can only hope it missed tendons. She grits her teeth and pulls the glass out, grunting and panting as she does so, stifling the screams she wants to let loose. Her wand, she realises then, as her bruised knees add their throbbing pain to the chorus of her hurts. Terror flares up and her heart pounds, her mind spins. Her wand! She is dead without it, and she searches the dark, rubble-strewn ground frantically, nearly hyperventilating.

“Looking for this?” A voice over the noise of battle, and Hermione’s head jerks up. White-blonde hair and grey eyes are faintly amused on her as she stares up at him, on all fours, panicking and unarmed. Her heart beats so fast she feels like she is having palpitations, and her fingers claw into the ground hard in reaction.

“Yes,” she says, watching him cautiously as hatred sweeps over his face, her wounded hand closing over the shard of glass she pulled from it just seconds before. It is no match for a wand, but better than nothing. She understands why he hates her, and she cannot fault him for that – she would hate her too, most likely. But if he aims to kill her – and by the crazed, fixed expression on his pale face, she thinks he does, then she will fight. Hermione fears the glass will slice her hand right through before it causes _him_ any injury though – a chunk of glass is no match for a wand. Besides, even in the madness of battle, with the need to survive running high and adrenaline pumping through her blood, Hermione doesn’t know if she can kill him.

“Please,” she says, and his mouth twitches into a faint smile that holds no humour; a rictus that only makes fear crawl over her skin.

“You are the reason that my Narcissa was killed, mudblood. I will…enjoy watching you die,” is all that Lucius Malfoy says, contemplatively – as if tasting the words, weighing them in his mouth. “I will make it _last_.”

“I’m sorry! I’m–” Hermione is prepared to grovel and scrape and beg for her life, because dignity has no place when one is inches from torture and death. The frantic apologies streaming through her mind are cut short from leaving her mouth, though. Lucius Malfoy does not care for her apologies.

“ _Crucio_ ,” he snarls and the ash and flame filled world shatters apart into pain. It feels as though her skin flays off, her muscles tear by inches from the bone, her tendons tie in knots, her organs pop like firecrackers, her bones themselves are slowly crushed in vices. She knows vaguely that she is screaming her raw throat bloody, biting into her tongue, arching and thrashing on the ground. She can hear as if from another world, Lucius Malfoy snarling the Cruciatus Curse like a litany.

It hurts. Everything is pain. She would grasp and claw for death with greedy fingers if it meant the end of the pain. She would be Voldemort’s willing slave if it would only stop the pain.

And then it stops. It stops and Hermione is left a twitching, shuddering wreck on the ground as the aftershocks rip through her, and her mind begins to slowly come back to her. Tears saturate her dirty cheeks and she swallows blood, her limbs jerking and seizing randomly. But the pain is just barely bearable. She wonders why he stopped, as she lies on the ground and stares at the night sky, utterly helpless. Is it only a temporary reprieve? Her blood roars in her ears, and everything seems very far away, except for the pain, which nestles close to her. She wonders if he is going to kill her soon, or if the abrupt end to the torture means she has been saved, somehow. The sky is so pretty. It still hurts.

And then a pair of grey eyes come into her field of vision; grey eyes just like his father’s, ringed around with soot and blood that nearly coat his entire face, and are streaked through his white-blonde hair.

“Fuck,” he pants, and his hand pats at her face frantically, little swipes over her cheeks and forehead, pushing her hair clumsily back off her face. Fear fills Draco’s eyes and makes them huge in his face, prettier than the stars she can see past his right ear. She shivers involuntarily with the aftershocks, trying to speak, but her mouth refuses to cooperate. She imagines she must look like she is dead, or maybe driven mad by the torture, like Neville’s parents were. “Fuck, _Hermione_.”

He drags his filthy thumb gently over her lips, eyes urgent on her. “Say something. Merlin-damnit, _say something_ , Hermione!”

Her eyes feel very heavy, and her tongue is swollen and thick in her mouth; she feels as though she and her lingering agony are separated from the rest of the world by a thick blanket of fog. Draco’s face is over hovering over hers, but she can’t see clearly. She thinks he looks panicked, maybe, but it is all soot and blood to her, his heavy, breathless pants for air gusting hot on her chin the realest thing about him.

“Hermione…” he nearly groans the word, grief and desperation filling his voice, and then something goes _splosh_ on her chin. She tries to speak, but all that comes out is strangled gurgling that sounds like she is being murdered. _Splosh._

“Rain,” she gets out thickly, eyes unfocused on the sky past Draco’s head, which looks cloudless to her blurred eyes – but a few spatters have caught her cheek and jaw. Drops, _drip-drip-dripping_ on her face. They are strangely warm, and she wonders why, her forehead wrinkling into a puzzled frown. Another jolt of pain sears through her and she feels her body spasm involuntarily, arching up off the ground, a gurgling wail ripping out of her throat. Darkness swallows Hermione up, nothingness enveloping her, and she sinks into it willingly.

* * *

 

**Saturday 3 rd May, 1998**

She sits on the steps into Hogwarts, in a patch that is not ruined by rubble or blood – the bodies have all been moved inside. It is late in the day; dusk is coming on swiftly, but Hermione has only been awake an hour. It seems that after she passed out, Draco managed to get her to the hospital wing, and then went back out to fight while a Healer tended Hermione’s wounds. She feels weak and shaky, and now and then a spasm will cramp her muscles, her whole body still aches, but she is up and walking and that is all she needs.

Harry tells her that Lucius Malfoy is in Azkaban awaiting processing at this very moment, and he will stay there in remand until his trial. Draco is alive, Harry says – Hermione thinks of Draco and remembers his tears warm on her face, which she had thought in her delirium, were rain drops. She remembers the way his face had filled up the night sky. The panic in his voice as he’d begged her to respond to him. She hasn’t seen him yet, and she is frightened of what will happen. She is frightened he will walk away now it is all over, and leave her alone. And she is alone.

Her parents are memory-charmed in Australia, Harry is with Ginny, and Ron with the rest of the Weasleys, and the list of the dead rolls on and on, people who loved Hermione, who she loved…all gone. They have left her – been torn away. She is alone, she thinks, stuffed full of self-pity, because right now grief is too sharp, too much. She walked the rows of the dead in the Great Hall just moments earlier, getting to Tonks’ pale, dead face, Remus lying beside his wife, before she lost all control and fled like a coward.

And now here she sits, staring as the last traces of the sun’s rays play about the horizon, feeling as though she would like very much to cry. It won’t come though. She feels like concrete has been poured into her, filling her up beneath her skin – heavy and numbed, and the tears are trapped inside her. Her eyes sting and burn dryly from the trapped tears and the ash that still fills the air, and she coughs and rubs at her eyes, lets out a shaky breath. It is over, she thinks slowly. The war is over. There is a certain grave serenity to the air – or perhaps it is just shock, she isn’t sure. But she feels like she could sit here and watch the sunset forever, in a bubble of numbness that nearly feels like peace.

“You did the right thing,” Draco says quietly, from somewhere behind her, and then there are sounds of scuffling and rocks skittering over stone as he sits down beside her. She looks over at him; his clothes coated in ash and blood, his hair a mess, his skin mostly cleaned, but the pristine whiteness of the bandages here and there show up the soot and blood that remains faintly on his skin. Hermione knows what he’s talking about immediately, and her heart leaps and falls, a stone skimming over the surface of water.

“I had no right.” Her eyes are unwavering on his face as he looks out at the horizon.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But you were only trying to save me,” he says and squints at her in the sunset’s light, fine lines edging at the corners of his eyes, a vivid red split through the middle of his full bottom lip, a deep gash cutting down his cheek. His grey eyes are luminous and cautious on her, and he is beautiful despite faint rings of soot around his eyes, and a spatter of blood on his chin and jaw that he has missed when cleaning up. So beautiful. Hermione’s blood rushes loudly, and her breath feels shallow. The concrete-feeling has been replaced by a shivering electricity feeling, and it sets her heart thrumming like a bird’s.

“I loved you,” she says very quietly, meeting his eyes.

“Loved?”

“I – I don’t think I even know what I feel anymore. Too much – I can’t seem to comprehend anything right now, Draco. It hasn’t even sunk in that…it’s over.” She tries to explain it; that she feels very fragile, that she can’t put herself out there just yet, not when the dead are just inside and their blood still soaks the ground. Everything about her feels as though it is on the edge, and a nudge could send her over into the madness she barely avoided last night. He nods in understanding.

“I tried to hate you. I think I even succeeded for a while.”

“But not anymore?”

“No. Not anymore.” His grey eyes are fired by the dying sunset, and are unreadable to her. “Nothing lasts forever,” he says with a small tip to his mouth, and that is a double-edged sword but Hermione will take it as a good thing, right now, with Draco’s fingers edging over to brush against hers. The touch sends hot shivers racing through her.

“And besides, I missed you – in the end,” he adds, and Hermione thinks she can see what is lying beneath that grave carefulness to his features.

His fingers lace through hers then and her heart becomes a frenzied thrumming that she thinks will rip it straight out of her chest, even though a strange stillness has fallen upon the rest of her body. She doesn’t know what to say, and instead stares at him like a speechless idiot, licking her lips and squeezing his fingers so hard she thinks she might break both of their hands.

“I – Hermione, I think, maybe we should…” He is unable to finish, his voice too thick, and Hermione’s chest is so tight. She smiles at his doubtful, worried face, blinking back the tears that are finally welling up now. Only they are not just grief and loss now, they are hope too, like the first rains after drought.

“I think…yeah, me too,” Hermione says in a small uncertain voice, and leans into Draco, her shoulder bumping into his upper arm, her head tipping so it rests lightly on his shoulder. He stiffens and then unwinds again, and his lips brush lightly against the top of her head before he lifts his face to the sunset. They watch the last of it, the gold and pink turning to blues and stars, their fingers intertwined and a peace settling into Hermione’s bones. They do not talk, not yet; the future stretches on in front of them now, and there is all the time in the world to figure out what it is they think.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue to go!


	8. Epilogue

 

**Epilogue**

* * *

 

She shall be three and named for both grandmothers, and she will play in the rambling ruins of the Manor gardens with the raucous abandon of ignorance. He will watch her with wondering eyes; her blonde hair flying out behind her, her pinked cheeks and her sturdy legs, and Hermione will watch him as he does.

He will wear a white Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, only a faint trace of darkness remaining on his left forearm, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his dark grey trousers. He will be just a fraction taller than the six foot he was at sixteen, with the solid build of a man instead of a teenager’s lankiness, and his fringe will flutter pale over his forehead in the warm summer breeze.

His eyes will be riveted to the small girl tugging at the overgrown ivy on a garden wall in great, green fistfuls, grinning wildly as she strips away leaves, and he will seem very distant. Hermione will think Draco is like a ghost beneath the sun, standing in this old haunt of both childhood and evil, and she will feel a sudden need to root him to the earth.

Her hand shall slide down the plane of his back as she comes up behind him, and she will feel the lean lines of muscle flex and shift as he reacts to the unexpected touch.

“Rose is having fun,” Hermione will comment, as though it is just another day out, and not the first time Draco will have laid foot on the property since he was sixteen and his mother’s ashes were sprinkled on these gardens. Ten years, but still this place and the past it represents will hang over Draco like a dark cloud - but today, Hermione will have hope the skies will clear for him. He will summon a distant smile in return as Hermione moves up and smiles at him, and his arm will come around her, tugging her to his side as a pent up breath _whooshs_ slowly out of him.

“She doesn’t know,” he will say as they watch Rose Narcissa Malfoy tear down long strips of ivy and laugh. And Hermione will lean into her husband and feel his heartbeat drumming steady, her eyes on their daughter.

“Then we’ll tell her, when she’s old enough to understand.” She will fist her hand in the back of his shirt, sun-warmed cotton crumpling in her grip, and shift and lean to kiss the line of his jaw. “And it will change nothing. She will still enjoy the gardens.” Hermione really means that Rose will still love her father, and that the memories, vivid to Hermione and Draco, will only be a story to the little girl. A whisper and a sound, toothless and empty of poison, because the past is past and holds no power except that which they give it. Hermione will have learnt that at age twenty-six, through necessity and a peace that Draco has given her, but not found himself.

“Life will go on,” she shall tell her husband with quiet reassurance, and he will look down at her then with his eyes the colour of rain-swollen clouds, and nod once, decisive acceptance. He will not smile, but then he rarely does for anyone but Rose; he would not be Draco if he smiled easily.

His mouth will meet hers then, a chaste press of warm, firm lips, that will deepen as Hermione’s lips part and his tongue dips in between them fleetingly. Hot shivers will run through her blood and bones and make her feel feverish beneath the bright wash of sun as their mouths meet and meld and his intoxicating scent fills her nostrils. A hand fisted in his shirt and the other laid to his cheek and the rasping stubble will tickle her palm. His hand cradling the back of her head, the other arm locked around her waist. He will hold her both very tightly and as if she is made of glass, and she will feel the small, hard swell of her four month pregnant belly between them.

And then Rose will come running up and they will break the kiss as she declares the Manor grounds ‘splendifewous’, because she will be her mother’s daughter, and Hermione and Draco will share a rueful glance, his lips twitching with a trace of a smile as she grins widely. They will part reluctantly as Rose clings to Draco’s leg, a child-sized limpet, and he will take their daughter up into his arms and kiss her blonde head. Hermione will watch Draco, talking to their daughter and smiling, grey eyes alight with happiness and the sun, and her heart will swell with tenderness and undeniable want.

“How would you like to go to Uncle Harry and Auntie Ginny’s this afternoon, to spend the night, sweetie?” she will ask her daughter leadingly, licking her thumb and swiping a smudge of dirt off the three-year-old’s cheek.

“Yes yes yes!” her daughter will crow, clapping chubby stars of hands together; she is always happy to stay a night with Harry, Ginny, and cousin James, as they are always happy to have her. Draco will give Hermione a knowing look and a smirk will shape his lips, a wicked gleam entering his eyes, and her stomach will slowly, deliciously curl. There will be a small shopping bag sitting in the back of their wardrobe that she secreted there the day before; filled with silky underthings that, as will sometimes happen, she will not have bought for herself, and she will want to surprise Draco with them tonight.

“Your mother would be so happy for you,” Hermione shall say as they wend their way through the overgrown gardens back to the apparition point, Rose balanced on her hip and her free hand intertwined with Draco’s. He will clench his jaw and blink down the well of emotions, shoot her a quick glance and nod as his hand squeezes hers tighter.

“She would,” he will say in a tight, rough voice, and clear his throat. “I’m glad we came,” he shall admit, and then smirk weakly at the next part, his wry intonation belying the emotion she knows he feels. “And I’m glad we’re leaving now, too.”

“Shall we come back next year?” Hermione will ask tentatively, because today is Narcissa Malfoy’s birthday, and she thinks it is important for Draco to come to this place filled with so many happy memories of his mother and his childhood, which should not be tainted by the bad. He will draw her and Rose tight into the circle of his arms at the apparition point, and his eyes will be steady on hers.

“I don’t know. But we have time to think about it before we have to decide. _Plenty_ of time, Hermione.”

She will nod and smile sheepishly, because she knows it annoys him when she tries to plan unnecessarily far ahead. “You’re right; there’s no hurry.”

“Huwwy!” Rose will echo. “Huwwy, daddy, huwwy! I want to go home and get weady to go see Uncle Hawwy and Auntie Ginny and Jamie!” Draco will lift an eyebrow at Hermione in exasperated amusement, because Rose is also her mother’s daughter in that she loves the Potters, and while it will annoy Draco far less than it would have ten years ago, it still grates on his sensibilities. Hermione will nearly always drop their daughter off at Harry’s by herself; Draco can rarely be dragged there, although he is civil when he sees the Potters. But he will not show any sign to Rose that he has no love for them, merely accede to his daughter’s wishes with a small sigh.

“Yes, Rose,” he will say obediently and Hermione will smile, and then they will spin and twist away, leaving the gardens and the old manor behind, back to their small cottage in Merrymeet where none of the past lingers to poison the air.

Hermione will think of time and choices as she opens their white front door, and will remember a sixteen-year-old Draco, with a feeling that makes her chest ache in a way she cannot describe. But she will set Rose down and draw the living room curtains back and open the windows, and the sun will come streaming in and so will the breeze, bringing with it the scent of summer grass that fills the house. And Draco will stand at the doorway to the lounge, leaning with loose-boned ease against the doorframe, and he will watch her with a rare smile on his lips. Hermione will think of time and choices, and of the twenty-six-year-old Draco who stands before her, with a feeling that makes her chest ache in a way she cannot describe.

And she will smile at him, and then maybe they will meet in the middle of the room and kiss, while their daughter stares out the window at the rain-threatening clouds that are the same colour as her curious eyes.

* * *

 

**_Fin._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To date, this is my favourite work, and I hope you all have gotten as much pleasure out of reading it, as I did in writing it.  
> Thank you for reading,  
> Liss xx


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